Around The Horn

Some links for the weekend:

• Maybe everybody else already knew about this, but I just discovered this amazing site where you can watch episodes of classic and current television shows (like "Hill Street Blues," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Office") as well as movies (like "Raising Arizona," "The Jerk," and "The Usual Suspects").

• Salon offers this complete de-pantsing of Keith Olbermann, who spent ten minutes on his program in January comparing President Bush to the Third Reich for wanting to amend the Foreign Intelligence Survellience Act (FISA) to give telcomm companies retroactive immunity for warrentless surveillance conducted under presidential authority. When Barack Obama said the other day that he also thought maybe it was a good idea, Olbermann turned out to be all for it. But while Salon strips Olbermann bare, at least they leave his toupee largely intact.

• Jonah Goldberg at NRO must have read my blog yesterday. His piece on the Supreme Court nails it, saying, "Today, that despot has a name. It’s Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy rules — thanks to his status as the court’s swing vote — as the true King of America." Commenting on the despicable act committed by President Bush--who is sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution--in signing McCain-Feingold while admitting the unconstitutionality of it, Goldberg also writes:

  Aside from a legalistic-yet-lawless despotism that makes the meaning of our Constitution hinge on how much fiber Justice Kennedy’s diet has on a particular day, the result of this pathetic state of affairs is that the first branch of government doesn’t take itself seriously.

• Mona Charen is equally excellent, writing:

  In fact, when you consider that the court is pretty well divided between four liberals and four conservatives with Justice Kennedy swinging from one side to another as the spirit moves him, we now enjoy a Republic of Kennedy. All this fuss and bother about the presidential race is misplaced. The most powerful man in the land is someone most Americans couldn’t pick out of a lineup.

• Canada's National Post points out a difficult but obvious Canadian truth: Mike Myers just isn't funny anymore, and hasn't been for some time.

Have a great weekend, and don't kill each other stampeding into the theater for that new Pixar film, "We Print Our Own Money Now."

Keith Olbermann Salon Keith Olbermann's toupee Jonah Goldberg Mona Charen NRO Anthony Kennedy Supreme Court Mike Myers

The King And I

So I see that the United States Supreme Court has narrowly decided to allow us to keep the Second Amendment for at least a little while longer, with King Anthony once again the swing vote in a 5-4 decision.

While I'm glad the Court got this one right, it should be noted that they have absolutely no authority anyway to strike down one of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, and so regardless of what they might have decided, the right would still exist. The notion that we would be having to wait, 219 years after the ratification of the Constitution, for a court to tell us whether the Second Amendment will remain operative is absurd, and it's reminiscent of the kind of monarchy from which the nation's founders were trying to extricate themselves.

Because we are a nation of laws rather than men, and because the supreme law of the land is the Constitution, citizens would be not only have been right, but even obligated to disobey the Court's ruling had it gone the other direction. Ironically, the very purpose of the amendment was to prevent a tyrant from waving away our rights on a whim, which the Court was one swishy (as usually) Anthony Kennedy vote away from trying to do.

Because the Court has chosen to insert itself in all the major political battles of the day and rule by fiat (with the help of the liberal advocacy groups that decided the democratic process wasn't going their way in the 20th century), one unelected man--Anthony Kennedy--is now the most powerful person in the land. Whichever way the wind happens to blow the famously vascillating Justice Kennedy is the way our constitutional rights go that day. Today the wind was blowing in a good direction. Tomorrow it may not be. Such a setup, of course, makes an utter mockery of the Constitution, a situation that's not changed when Kennedy follows the broken clock rule and happens to get a decision right.

Supreme Court Anthony Kennedy Second Amendment

Around The Horn

Some links for a Monday afternoon:

• My fellow evangelicals tend to think that the core message one is trying to communicate is one thing and the form that message takes is entirely another. But while Marshall McLuhan may have overstated it with his maxim "the medium is the message," it becomes more and more clear that the medium affects the message in powerful ways. This must-read article in the Atlantic Monthly wonders if the Internet, which admittedly contains a wealth of wonderful and helpful information, might be entirely rewiring the way we think. (HT: Carl Trueman)

• King Kaufman of Salon takes a specialized look back at the late George Carlin's work particularly dealing with sports. (And of course beware of Carlin's normal R-rated, frequently blasphemous language.) As a former sports talk host, I found Carlin's contributions to the never-ending, time-killing "sport/not-a-sport" discussion were invaluable. My favorites: "Swimming isn't a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning." And also, "Tennis isn't a sport. Tennis is just ping pong standing on the table."

• Speaking of sports talk radio, it looks like the premiere duo in the genre might be breaking up.

• Is it just me, or does the mainstream media seem to be studiously avoiding questioning Barack Obama's sketchy relationship with Islam earlier in life? Oh, I guess it's not just me. The outstanding journalist Melanie Phillips wonders about it too.

• Comic actress Dodie Goodman has died. Raising the question, Dodie Goodman was still alive? I felt similarly last week after hearing that Cyd Charisse had died.

...Like Church Bells

Today's Chutzpah Award goes to South Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-Embarrassment). He says in today's Sun-Sentinel that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should be impeached, adding that they "should not only be impeached, they ought to be jailed for what they did to this nation."

And of course, Alcee would know, having been himself impeached and convicted by the U.S. Senate as a federal judge in 1989 for soliciting a $150,000 bribe. He became only the sixth federal judge in the history of the United States to be removed from office by the Senate.

Alcee Hastings impeachment

U2, President Bush?

Now that my kids are at the age when they've become far more internet savvy than I am, they direct my attention to things I'd never have found on my own. Lately, they've pointed me to some unusual videos, like this oddly hypnotic clip of George W. Bush doing the U2 song, "Sunday Bloody Sunday." It starts out amusing, and then becomes transfixing. Somebody spent months editing this thing. It has to be seen to be believed.

He Liked Me, He Really Liked Me

One of the sad television spectacles of this past weekend was Keith Olbermann's desperate, ongoing attempt to hitch himself to the Tim Russert wagon, as if the two were so close that he was in the habit of sitting between Russert and Russert's son at Buffalo Bisons ballgames.

But one column reminds us today that only days before his death, Russert was actually distancing himself from Olbermann. The column cites a New Yorker profile of Olbermann which chronicles the incredibly long string of former colleagues who utterly hate the guy. Indeed, long before he became the host of "Pravda" (or whatever they call it) on MSNBC, Olbermann was primarily known in my former industry of sportscasting as a pompous, utter tool who usually got fired from jobs in six months.

Anyway, in the New Yorker story, Olbermann's close, personal friend, confidant, and mentor Tim Russert is quoted as saying, "What cable emphasizes, more and more, is opinion, or even advocacy. Whether it’s Bill O’Reilly or Keith Olbermann or Lou Dobbs, that’s what that particular platform or venue does. It’s not what I do."

The article also makes clear that Tom Brokaw thinks Olbermann is a nutcase who's a long-term detriment to NBC's news division. Whether or not Olbermann's on-air behavior is a detriment to NBC, I'll leave to others. But I will say this: the guy's toupee definitely is a detriment.

Keith Olbermann Tim Russert Keith Olbermann's toupee

Just One More Russert Story

A lot has been said about Tim Russert in the 72 hours since his sudden death. Though he was obviously well-loved, and though I considered him by far to be the best and the fairest of the mainstream media interviewers, after the first few hours following the stunning news, I began to find many of the reminiscences repetitive and a little bland. Nice guy. Loved Buffalo. Loved what he did. Loved his family.

But this morning, one stood out to me for some reason. I found myself touched by the sweet rememberance of former NBC News president Michael Gartner, the man who pushed Russert out from the backstage shadows of NBC into the limelight. In all the stories over this weekend, this is one I hadn't seen told.

Finally, I told him he should be – had to be – the moderator of Meet the Press, which wasn't doing well.

"No way," he said again.

We argued. We debated. We fought. He raised objections, I shot them down. At the end, he said, "Look, I can't do it. I'm ugly." "Well, I said with a laugh, I can't argue that one (he had a chubby face that looked like it was made out of Play-Doh) but I'm not looking for a handsome guy, I'm looking for a smart one." Finally, he agreed, and in 1991 he became moderator of the show.

...The show made him rich and famous. I don't know how rich, but a few years ago, when he signed a new, long-term contract with NBC, he called me up to tell me, and he remembered his reluctance about taking the job. He laughed, and he said: "I thank you. My wife thanks you. My son thanks you. And my unborn grandchildren, however many there will be, thank you." It must have been a good deal.

Around The Horn

Sorry the blogging has been so light. It seems to be one of those seasons of life when blogging is difficult to get to. In the middle of an election season, no less! My daughter keeps reminding me that I need to get to the TV shows that I purposely left out of my top 10 sitcoms of all-time. In the meantime, until I can get to that, some links I've been enjoying today--with free annotation!:

• Every preacher needs to read this excellent post at Pyromaniacs from Dan Phillips.

• This was published months ago and I missed it, but the New York Times has a fascinating piece on the "conversion" of noted former atheist Antony Flew to theism (or really Deism, more accurately). If the story is to be believed, evangelicals might be taking advantage of a confused old man to bolster their case against atheism. (HT: Heidelblog)

• Doug Wilson has been beautifully contesting N.T. Wright's notions of Christian solutions for Third World problems. Wright advocates the traditional liberal responses (e.g. aid, debt forgiveness, etc.), but as Wilson aptly points out, "just do something--anything" is not a wise or helpful course of action:

  Turns out that food aid to Africa isn't doing what liberal guilt motives insist that it must be doing. Many of the things we do over there just make things worse. Let's go over that again, so that the point is not missed or lost in the confusion. Many of the things we do just make things worse.

  Wilson goes on to cite this interesting article for details. (For other excellent entries in Wilson's series, see here, here, here, and here.)

• Here's a good article about how Ted Kennedy is awfully fortunate that he's not limited to the European-style universal health care he's dead-set on sticking the rest of us with. For example:

  Consider, too, the chemo drug Kennedy is receiving: Temodar, the first oral medicine for brain tumors in 25 years.
  
  Temodar has been widely used in this country since the FDA approved it in 2000. But a British health-care rationing agency, the National Institute for Comparative Effectiveness, ruled that, while the drug helps people live longer, it wasn't worth the money - and denied coverage for it.

  But, of course, as is often the case with liberals, Kennedy's "solutions" are for everybody else.

• In an effort to figure out what all the hubbub is about and enter the 21st century, I'm now what feels like the oldest person on Facebook. Just being there makes me feel like some kind of creepy predator. But other than that, it's great. Stop by and say hi. Or however it works. I hope someday to conduct all of my human relationships exclusively via Facebook.

Continuing The Blatant Self-Promotion

Okay, so the interview I did with Jerry Newcombe did air on C-SPAN 2 last night, and according to their Book TV schedule, it will air again:

Sunday, June 1, at 9:00 AM
Sunday, June 1, at 7:00 PM
Monday, June 2, at 4:00 AM
Saturday, June 7, at 8:30 PM

Just in case you missed it. The part with me starts about 35 minutes in (though of course it's all good). And if you're really dying for entertainment, you can watch it now on their website.

Okay, that's the last I'll have to say about C-SPAN. At least until the next time I make fun of it after watching a guy standing at a podium in a Border's store speaking to seven geeks in Braintree, MA, one of which geeks actually bumps the camera in the middle of the show. Then I'll talk about C-SPAN again. But in the meantime....

C-SPAN Update

After about a million revisions (these people ain't kidding when they say "subject to change"), C-SPAN's website is now showing that the program I did with Jerry Newcombe about his book How Would Jesus Vote? will air TONIGHT at 8pm Eastern on C-SPAN 2's "Book TV."

Might the airdates for this coming weekend still be valid? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Nobody seems to know. One begins to think that C-SPAN has spent so much time covering Congress that they've become like Congress. But anyway, tonight it is, until the next revision which will probably come later this afternoon. Or perhaps midway through the program.

At this point, your guess is as good as mine.

C-Spanning The Globe

If you're interested in this kind of thing, you can see yours truly on C-SPAN 2 next Sunday, June 1st at 7pm Eastern. (It will also air at 9am Eastern that morning, but I know you'll be in church then. Right?)

I'll be interviewing my good friend Jerry Newcombe about his new book (which he wrote with the late D. James Kennedy) called How Would Jesus Vote?

(Unfortunately, on short notice, they weren't able to come up with a controversial title for the book, so they went with this one instead.)

If you're not able to watch it, I'm sure there will probably be repeated re-airings for insomniacs at 3:12am every second Wednesday of the month for the forseeable future. I'm told that these times are "subject to change," which they already have at least once. I'll keep you posted.

Hey, c'mon. You knew you were going to be watching C-SPAN 2 anyway. Why miss it?

Back Home Again With Indiana

I was a little concerned when I heard they were making a new Indiana Jones movie. After the way Sylvester Stallone has been destroying the memories of once great film franchises, the prospect of senior citizen Harrison Ford doing whip tricks at the nursing home was disturbing to say the least.

We went to the opening of the film last night, and as it turns out, I needn't have feared. Granted, I didn't come in with particularly high expectations, but I found the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to be loads of fun and solid entertainment, which, while not matching the greatness of the first film (or even, perhaps, the third one) is a worthy entry in the Indy franchise. It's actually better than the second one. (Which brings up a movie-making corollary. Never, ever cast a family member in a film. See: Capshaw, Kate. Or Coppola, Sophia.)

The obvious issue to be dealt with is Indy's age, and it's handled winningly, which is why the film works. Indiana Jones movies have always been tongue-in-cheek, so they have a built in advantage in this department over, say, the dead-earnest "Rocky" films. It also doesn't hurt that Harrison Ford has kept himself in good shape and doesn't look like a 65 year old guy up there. It's great to see him and Karen Allen together again (and bless her for letting herself age gracefully like a normal person rather than the typical stretch-faced Hollywood star), and the kid what's-his-name adds some fun.

There is, of course, some weird, cultic spirituality on display, but that kind of thing has always been prominent in the archaeology-premised series anyway. More bothersome were a couple of gratuitous s-bombs from the kid. Still, if you're a fan of the Indiana Jones series, you'll find a lot to like in this one. And Spielberg is like a kid in a candy store, stuffing every theme and fantasy he's ever dealt with basically into one film (though now that I think of it, I didn't see a shark's fin). It's gonna make about $300 million bucks, I expect.

A Beautiful Mind

If you've never seen this video before, I highly recommend that you take five minutes and have a look. It's an autistic guy who, after flying over a city he's never been to before for 45 minutes, can draw the entire thing in astounding detail days later. It's really quite incredible.

This Is What The Internet Is For

You'd be sad for me if you had any idea of how much this video delighted me of a guy in his backyard doing impressions of every significant St. Louis Cardinals batting stance of the past 25 years:



Check the links afterwards--he's done other teams and eras too.

(HT: ESPN's Bill Simmons)

Laugh Tracks

I see that AOL appears to have named "TV's Best 50 Comedies of All Time." Most of the programs that should be on the list are on the list, but the numerical rankings are in some cases spectacularly misguided and wrong. "The Dick Van Dyke Show" at 33, just behind "Welcome Back Kotter" and "Will & Grace?" Are you kidding me? Somebody down there needs to put down the crack pipe and smoke a rock of historical perspective instead. Or something like that.

Anyway, putting their inane rankings aside (which we'd be forced to do with any list that put "Mork and Mindy" behind "Happy Days," or which put "Friends" in the top 10), here are the annotated top 10 sitcoms of all time as seen by the final authority on the matter: me, John Rabe.

10. Happy Days: Okay, I know it's not cutting social satire or Oscar Wilde wordplay, but Garry Marshall's show launched the career of Robin Williams, spun off "Laverne and Shirley," made the Fonz the phenomenon of the 70's, and gave us added the term "jump the shark" to the lexicon. Ever use the word "nerd"? Thank "Happy Days." (By the way, this has nothing to do with the topic, but go rent Albert Brooks' "Lost in America" sometime for the scene between Brooks and Garry Marshall as the Desert Inn casino manager. "We don't have Santy Claus." One of my favorite funny movie scenes of all time.)

9. Get Smart: I saw some of these on DVD recently (though they've only been released in Europe, apparently, which is borderline criminal) and the humor holds up surprisingly well. When I was about seven, I used to love to watch it because it had gadgets and spies. I came back to it when I was older and discovered that it was really, really funny. A beautiful combination of slapstick humor and sharp writing. If Mel Brooks and Buck Henry got together today to launch a show, who wouldn't watch that? Well they did do it, and it was tremendous.

8. Arrested Development: Huh? You heard right. This show only lasted about 2 1/2 seasons on Fox, but I've never seen a non-animated program with more funny per minute than AD. It was profane and not for the kiddies (or even sensitive adults), and when my friend Bud told me I had to watch it, I resisted because of the loony, slapstick promos I'd seen. After I'd finally watched one, it was only a matter of days before I'd consumed every available episode on DVD. I still keep hoping against hope they'll bring it back.

7. The Bob Newhart Show: Newhart is funnier struggling to say something than most people are saying anything. I'm rolling his other show, "Newhart" into this ranking too because of its finale--the greatest in television history, filmed before an unsuspecting studio audience.

6. The Simpsons: Out of the gate, this program threatened to be overrun by the merchandising bonanza that surrounded Bart-mania. It had fad written all over it. But 19 years later, they're still there cranking out the densest 30 minutes of comedy on television. And it's still funny. Minute-for-minute, year for year, the funniest program in the history of television.

5. Seinfeld: I know it's an easy choice, but there's no way around it--this show took nothing and made it hilarious. It's hard to believe that this month marks the 10th anniversary of the show's departure. Am I the only one who remembers that Frank Sinatra died on the night of the finale? These people managed to upstage Frank Sinatra's death. Now that's cultural currency! To get a measure of its influence, try double-dipping a chip into the dip at your next party and see what happens.

4. The Dick Van Dyke Show: This program did it all. Never straying beyond the bounds of good taste, this show put together great acting, wonderful characterizations, slapstick, sophisticated story structures, and great dialogue into an irresistible package. In many ways this program set the standard for all future sitcoms, and showed Carl Reiner to be a comic genius.

3. The Mary Tyler Moore Show: This wonderfully talented commedienne mostly played the straight man, allowing the best top-to-bottom cast in sitcom history flourish. Watching this program 30 years after it left the air, I'm coming to realize that however many Emmys Ed Asner won for this, it should've been more. It would be hard to find anyone in sitcom history who was funnier while using fewer words. Seasons 1-4 are available on DVD, and they're fairly inexpensive. Buy them and give yourself a treat.

2. Cheers: It took a real hit after Shelly Long left, but no program has better combined hilarious writing with amazing chemistry the way "Cheers" did. I know that there are even people who prefer the Kirstie Alley years. Those people are idiots. But the years when Diane and Coach were there were something to behold. There's probably no program I wish were still on more than this one.

1. M*A*S*H: Yes, the final eight or so seasons became increasingly pedantic, preachy, and maudlin. Unfortunately after about four seasons of success, somebody handed girly-man Alan Alda the reins and the program never recovered. But those first few seasons are at the apex of anything that's ever been done on TV. There has never, ever been a funnier sitcom character than early Hawkeye Pierce. Larry Gelbart's writing is even more amazing the fifth time you hear it than it was the first.

If pressed, I could probably be pursuaded to bump "Happy Days" in favor of "The Larry Sanders Show" or "Curb Your Enthusiasm." But something tells me the list should be confined to broadcast television in order to be authentic. Feel free to add your own choices in the comments thread.

Coming next (probably after my upcoming vacation): the shows that didn't make the list--and why.

Happy Days Get Smart Arrested Development The Bob Newhart Show The Simpsons Seinfeld The Dick Van Dyke Show The Mary Tyler Moore Show Cheers M*A*S*H Sitcoms

Radio, Radio

If you've been interested in the discussion surrounding the ideas brought forward in Expelled, I'll be hosting a radio program here in South Florida on Friday where my guest at 1pm Eastern will be David Berlinski, the brilliant mathematician and self-described secular Jew who appears in the film (and describes Richard Dawkins as "a bit of a reptile"--he's quite a character).

You can listen live online here--just click on the button in the upper right-hand corner that says "Listen Online." Unfortunately, there's no archived audio yet, so you'll have to tune in live. Again it's at 1pm Eastern. And at about 1:30pm, I'll be talking with Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson about the theology of Jeremiah Wright.

Step Right Up

Challies is doing a great book giveaway this month. You can enter by clicking on the banner below. If you dig the Puritans (and you ought to if you don't), jump in on this one.

Watching The Wheels

Things have been a bit slow for the past few days, so I'll direct you to a few of the things with which I've been wasting my own time:

• This two-part "60 Minutes" interview with Antonin Scalia is simply wonderful. If you have any interest at all in the Supreme Court, you need to take about a half hour to watch it. It's worth it just for Lesley Stahl's astonishment that Scalia doesn't have horns and a pitchfork. Scalia has done himself a disservice by not allowing media coverage of most of his public speeches. This is one engaging, enjoyable guy.

• Want to hear the most annoying song ever--scientifically proven? (And as it turns out, no, it's not "It's a Small World After All")

  An online poll conducted in the '90s set Vitaly Komar, Alex Melamid and David Soldier on a quest to create the most annoying song ever. After gathering data about people's least favorite music and lyrical subjects, they did the unthinkable: they combined them into a single monstrosity, specifically engineered to sound unpleasant to the maximum percentage of listeners.

  Now that's science! It's about 22 minutes long (not unlike those annoying and ponderous 70's songs like "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"), but if you listen to it, you have to at least give it six minutes. Trust me.
  (HT: Challies)

• How beautifully ironic is it that Yoko Ono is suing the makers of "Expelled" over copyright infringement for using part of her husband's song that asks us to "Imagine no possessions"? What is copyright, after all, but an assertion of possession? (And, incidentally, I'm confident the usage will prove to be protected under fair use law.)

• Here's an odd tidbit from John Piper that might help you someday if you do public speaking.

The Movie They Don't Want You To See

Today's the day. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed opens nationwide. Documentaries don't tend to last long in the theaters, so make sure to see it this weekend. Find local times and theaters here.

Looking Chipper

Okay, baseball guys, I have a question for you. A baseball-fan buddy of mine stopped by a little while ago and asked me, "Chipper Jones. Possible Hall of Famer?"

My first instinct was to laugh and say, "No, of course not." But I've frequently argued against the notion of basing Hall votes on who "seems like a Hall of Famer." As Michael Lewis' Moneyball makes clear, statistics are always a far better measurement of greateness than the subjective standard of "seems."

So I looked up the numbers. And I have to admit being surprised. Jones is in his 15th season. Among his lifetime numbers:

.308 average
.404 on-base percentage
390 home runs (including six seasons of 30 or more)
1313 lifetime RBIs (including nine seasons of 100 or more, and another of 96)
428 doubles
1157 walks (I know nobody goes to the Hall on walks, but his BB numbers are huge)

If the voting were today, no, Chipper Jones would not be a plausible Hall of Famer (though a very good player). But it seems to me that if he put in four more solid seasons--say .300, 85 RBI's, 25 HR's, he'd have the kind of career numbers that would make him a plausible candidate. In most of the 2000's he was overshadowed at third base by Scott Rolen, who made numerous All Star games because Cardinals fans are better than Braves fans. That's part of why he doesn't "seem" like a Hall of Famer. But if he had four more fairly typical years at his current pace (which is very possible, since he hit .337 last year at the age of 35) , he'd finish with about 500 homers, nearly 1700 RBI's (which would put him ahead of RBI machines like Tony Perez, Mike Schmidt, Andre Dawson, and Ernie Banks) and a lifetime .300 average.

If all that happens, I think he's got a shot. What do you think?

Chipper Jones Baseball Hall of Famer