There's a nice entry over at OTB that discusses the public information aspect of the War in Iraq. Of course, what needs to be spelled out is that the struggle over here is just as pivotal as the the struggle over there.

Of course, the point is made that the mainstream media over here has authorized itself to label any spin on Iraq other than its own "propaganda," or "misinformation."

This hurts its credibility not at all. Keep it up, guys. Enjoy yourselves.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:44 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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. . . that the claims of left-wing bias in academia are just as overwrought as those hackneyed claims of liberal bias among mainstream news outlets.

Whew.

(Via Insty.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:38 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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An eccentric guide.

1) Don't set a timetable—or if you do, don't take it too seriously. If your husband were that determined to have dinner at 4:00, after all, he would have put the turkey in the oven himself. If all else fails, offer him a tuna sandwich.

2) Just because an object resides in the boxes marked "Christmas Decorations" does not mean it has to be displayed this year. Maybe it can go up next year instead. Rotate the Christmas knicknacks. Think about giving some away.

3) The house doesn't have to be any cleaner on Christmas Day than it is on any other day. If people wanted to be in a clean house, they'd be at your stepmother's place.

4) When in doubt, make a joke of it. Self flagellation isn't funny: the persistent temptation to engage in it is, however, hilarious.

5) Anything that goes wrong should be blamed on your nonexistent cook and household staff. Explain very earnestly that they've been spoken to harshly, and/or sacked.

6) Skip the nice china: it sets the wrong tone. Set out those cheerful Christmas plates your mother got you eight years ago: the ones with the bright colors and trees and reindeer that you regarded as a criminal waste at the time. China and silver that have to be washed by hand are only to be used when absolutely necessary, or when the world will end the next day via nuclear annihilation, and therefore all the dishes (every single last one of them) can be left in the sink.

7) When contemplating any aspect of holiday celebration, ask yourself, "do I feel like doing this?" This guideline will never steer you wrong.

Delegate tasks to your husband and mother. Have kids so that they can be given assignments in a decade or so, and—with any luck—take over the primary responsibility entirely in another 25 years. It's the only way to transition into the coveted "support" role your own mom enjoys.

9) There are 364 days a year to make yourself and everyone around you miserable. It doesn't have to be this day.

10) Buy most gifts at the ABC stores in Hawaii, so they'll be super-affordable and you won't go broke. Make it a point to still have money on December 26th.

Madeleine L'Engle: "We want nothing from you that you do without grace. And that you do without understanding." [From memory: A Wrinkle in Time. Feel free to fact-check my ass.]

11) If you're still subscribing to Martha Stewart Living, cut that out. She's a con, for crying out loud. Get Radar instead. Or something pornographic.

12) Make sure to get some of your Christmas decorations in the Hanukkah section at the store. That blue and silver stuff is much prettier than the garbage they foist off on the Anglo-Saxons. What are the Jews going to do to you, anyway?—kill Christ all over again? Relax.

13) The most important dose of Prozac all year is the one you take on Christmas Eve.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:01 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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It's just . . . well, it's adorable.

Via Photon Courier.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Annika's rubbing your face in the dirt. Already.

Shockingly, I got this one from Dennis the Peasant.

[Editor's Note: I'm agnostic on whether Pajamas Media will succeed or not: I kind of hope it does, if you want to know the truth. But I find Dennis' passion about it compelling. I still don't know what drives it, but the sheer intensity of his contempt makes for fascinating reading, at the same time I really respect a lot of the work put out by the individual PM blogs, and I hope they keep getting those checks. Truly, boys and girls: anyone who can make money off of blogging earns my respect. Except Wonkette, of course. Oh, and the current incarnation of Sully.]

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:12 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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. . . that the Arab/Muslim King isn't wearing any racism. Or something like that.

Via Beautiful Atrocities.

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Just a shout out to my readers. It blows me away that I have "readers." How cool.

Thanks for stopping by over the past year. It's nice to know that some people are following new media—even at the boutique level, where I live—and this has been great fun over the past two years and change (actually, it'll be three years this March; tempus fugit).

Now [this is beginning to sound downright polite, and I don't want to blow my image] please start saving up to buy my crime novel in a year or so. Thanks.

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. . . that my readers are simply a subset of Goldstein's, but for both of you who didn't follow me over from Protein Wisdom, I want to point out that his coverage of the NSA/wiretapping non-scandal is simply nonpareil (that means I like it). He may have done more digging on this than anyone out there.

Just go to his main page, and scroll.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:31 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Insty!

IN THE "WAR ON CHRISTMAS," CHRISTMAS HAS OPENED a second front.

Love him or hate him. But every now and then the man does get a good line off. More here.

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1 Speaking of Christmas, a Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones! Wishing you a day of happiness, joy, and every wish fulfilled! So GR must think the war isn't real. eh? Trying to score points with the dark side?

Posted by: Darrell at December 24, 2005 09:16 PM (mx7aY)

2 Merry Christmas!

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 25, 2005 10:02 AM (zZMVu)

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. . . wherein you have to wear feathers to make a point like this. May she forever be a thorn in her family's side. And may her racy pictures torment her uncle for the rest of his short life.

As for her own safety, I've thought for years that feminism needs its own Mossad. Wouldn't it be terrible if those who participated in honor killings were themselves offed?

Terrible. Horrible. I'll be organizing a training camp in the Eastern Sierras for the spring of 2006. Included: firearms and edged weapons, evasive tactics, linguistic skills, disguise, survival ability, and Manuevers for Screwing with Sexists' Morale.

E-mail me if you're interested. We'll be a bit more lethal than Bambi and Thumper—but just as buff. And we'll be protecting Ms. Dufour.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:32 AM | Comments (27) | Add Comment
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1 I hear his other 10,000 nieces are models of discretion

Posted by: jeff at December 24, 2005 11:59 AM (RIsNx)

2 I'll sign up! I'll sign up! This post may upset some of those ardent anti-feminists in the blogosphere.

Posted by: k at December 24, 2005 02:42 PM (6krEN)

3 We'll see, won't we?

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 24, 2005 06:31 PM (zZMVu)

4 "I want to be accepted here, but I feel that everybody's judging me and rejecting me." Okay, I judge her, too. A little more meat on them bones (and I mean meat, not fat) and I'll stop rejecting her, as well.

Posted by: John at December 24, 2005 08:47 PM (3sCAd)

5 Excellent. And then she'll start sleeping at night again . . .

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 24, 2005 09:13 PM (zZMVu)

6 Do you mean anti-feminists or "anti-feminists"?

Posted by: Desert Cat at December 25, 2005 12:22 AM (xdX36)

7 Hmm. Not sure. I go along with LMA's end analysis that the definition of feminist is so individualized that every person's is unique. So I think it follows that every definition of anti-feminist is, too. So being, I'd have to hear your definitions of anti-feminist and *anti-feminist* in order to understand well enough to respond properly.

Posted by: k at December 25, 2005 06:21 AM (M7kiy)

8 Eeek! No! Well, okay: there are (1) people who acknowledge that society has made mistakes under the rubric of feminism, such as taking anti-harassment codes so far that any semblence of humor is removed from the workplace, or reducing lovemaking among college students to a series of yes-or-no questions that each requires an audible answer. ("May I touch your breast?") Included in this group would be people who simply reject the label, as I did for years (until I decided it was situationally useful in the blogosphere). These people can be intellectually engaged. And then there are (2) people like LaShawn, who simply believe women cannot do certain white-collar jobs, like be President. These people should be gently told why their approach is incorrect. Harder to define would be (3) those heterosexual males who appear to regard women as creatures who exist to (a) gratify their sexual desires, and (b) look good on their arms when they arrive at a party. They should be laughed at. And then there are (4) those people concentrated in Latin America and—especially—the Middle East who think women should be beaten and kept under house arrest, and heartily engage in honor killings. It's this last group that the Feminist Mossad will focus on. Their edge in upper-body mass will do them no good, I'm afraid.

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 25, 2005 10:21 AM (zZMVu)

9 Okay. I should have just copied this in in the first place. Here's what I misstated: "Since I've started blogging I've used the label on occasion—to distinguish myself from conservatives of the LaShawn stripe—but I generally like to remind people that the word feminist has about as many interpretations as there are people hearing the word." I'd still have to hear what DC's definitions are to answer his question. Meanwhile, I'll join your brigade in a heartbeat. I can refer to this, under the law, as "self-defense of a third party." And while this may not be part of your battle plan - to which I would naturally defer - I myself think it could include not just the honor killings, but the not-always-sterile forcible surgery upon young girls to remove their female genitalia. Of course, at this point, most men and women alike will get so grossed out they don't want to hear about any of it any more. Is there a word for that? a female equivalent to the male, *emasculated?* Because there are around 100,000,000 women alive who've had that done to them. So I think there ought to be a word for it. Emasculation, on the other hand, is actually extremely rare. It displays a profound hatred not just of female sexuality, but simply of those people - via their parts - who are female-by-definition. To me this practice looks like a fitting physical embodiment of the need for feminism. The rest is levels and degrees. To pay someone a higher salary for doing the same job as me, just because they've got a penis and I don't, is ridiculous on its face. To have spent thousands of years passing laws and using social and physical pressure (via wife-beating and other violence) to prevent qualified women from practicing jobs that men want, could only indicate that we're at least as good as them at performing those jobs. If we weren't able to do that work, and do it well, we wouldn't be perceived as a competitive threat. Generally speaking, one only tries to control others because of fear. And murder is the ultimate form of control.

Posted by: k at December 25, 2005 11:22 AM (M7kiy)

10 I'm enraged by female genital mutilation, though I understand related violations were perpetrated upon men in the past in order to improve their singing voices. To tell you the truth, female "circumcision" (there's a euphemism for you) brings out my Old Testament streak. Male fear of women is complex. There is, I believe, an unconscious tendency to imbue us with near-supernatural powers due to the combo of sexual desire and the fact that we are often caregivers for males in their infancy/childhood. So we're always larger-than-life, desired, and hated for both those things. Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: One, and it's funny as hell.

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 25, 2005 12:25 PM (zZMVu)

11 Yeah - that actual real male emasculation did and does happen. But even in its heyday I bet there were never anything NEAR 100 million of 'em. The purpose of castrado was preserving a singing voice, not killing off any hope of healthy sexuality. And rumor has it, the boys were often given something of a choice about it. I haven't heard of a single group who gives the female a choice. So I think that's not such a very comparable thing, really. Men who were castrated to render them unable to have sex with a member of a harem they were guarding comes a little closer. Still, some societies gave those men a choice, too. The gender group controlling Who Gets The Knife has always been 99.9% or so male. Not female. Females carry out most of the contemporary mutilations of female children, but the rules are made by the men. So male fear of castration should be directed toward other men, not women. The fear of females emasculating men figuratively, though, is certainly common enough. I've heard those accusations leveled against all sorts of women, under a wide variety of circumstances, all my life. The great majority of them were ludicrous. The ones that held some validity? Those brought out the same rage in me as when it goes the other direction. Why would I think it was OK to be emotionally vicious to a different social group than mine? I think men need liberating too, and always have. Don't they need liberating from that fear? Complex fear, yes. I think your insight there is right on the money. But I firmly believe DNA desires are at the top of the list. For men to ensure their DNA comes to fruition, one method is to control women, and the use of force is one technique of control. The fear there is, my DNA will get left by the wayside, therefore I must control at least one fruitful woman. Honor killings *off* some of the eligible females, but the remaining females are more easily controlled. They're afraid, and for very good reason. Of course, for a man to find the right woman to fall in love with is the DNA-passing method I like the best. But me, I'm just a romantic after all. All the hollering about humorless feminists? Yeah, I've seen 'em be humorless. I don't like much of anything to be humorless, myself. Still, as I said once before, I don't tell dead baby jokes any more. It can be hard to be humorous about murder and mutilation, too. Yet...the reason mutilation came to mind in this post - sorry I forgot to clarify it before - is this: Among the several ironies of Ms. Dufour's photo shoot for GQ is, it's extremely unlikely that she escaped mutilation herself. If so, then here she is, doing her sexy poses, with no way of ever truly understanding sexuality in the first place. Now, that light bulb business there is a whole different ball of wax. Funny as hell, and probably entertaining in many other ways for all concerned. (Darrell, are you watching?)

Posted by: k at December 25, 2005 02:43 PM (M7kiy)

12 What? Good heavens, *I* still am not entirely clear. My head is still reeling from fillowing JeffG's debate with the "gender feminists" who rejected the "gender feminist" label, preferring to call themselves feminists while disparaging "equity feminists" who disagree with their radical agenda as "anti-feminists". When *I* think of anti-feminists, it is the Mohammedian sorts I think of.

Posted by: Desert Cat at December 25, 2005 03:22 PM (xdX36)

13 Oh! Well then, doesn't that put you right back here in our court? Most sensible Americans can see why it's really icky to cut off all the women's parts. And why this is a legitimate feminist issue. One way to winnow out the American women-haters, the serious and scary ones, is to wait for them to come out saying, Well, that's maybe not so bad...It's a quick and easy way for a gal to figure out who her real male friends are. I've deliberately avoided stopping by that blogstorm. But while it's of little interest to me for my own sake, I can see it could be a courtesy to others to give it a read. So 'scuse me a minute while I peruse.

Posted by: k at December 25, 2005 05:24 PM (M7kiy)

14 Well then, doesn't that put you right back here in our court? It depends upon the parameters of said court. By the definitions of the "gender feminists" (TRUE feminists), I'm most assuredly "anti-feminist", as theirs is an ideology that is for the most part a subchapter of the radical left. It is not inconceivable that I might consider myself to have a place somewhere at the "equity" feminist table. Which is a pretty radical thought for me, as for many years now I have associated all things "feminist" with the screeching harpies of the male-bashing gender feminist left. It has been a particular disappointment to me, that where I thought feminism could actually be most useful, these self-appointed "true" feminists seem to want nothing to do with the plight of their sisters in Muslim countries. That's because modern feminism serves the needs of the radical left first and foremost. And encouraging US hegemony in any shape or form for any purpose, however beneficial to a particular subchapter, is *not* on the agenda. So, as for the feminist Mossad, I say "SIC 'EM!" Their fear and loathing of the west distills down almost completely to their misogyny. It's too bad the left made such a stink over Abu Ghirab--it diminished the power of Lyndie England. Sorry if it offends some folks, but I have to grin inwardly over the thought of what the images of her playing dominatrix on their sorry asses did to their collective scrotums. Ah, the humanity! The emotional scarring! How many hot, sweltering S&M nightmares did she inspire? Mumbling "yes...yesss" then waking to scream "NO! NO-O!" Ok, I know that's not how we win friends and influence people, but still. Any society that requires female "circumcision" needs to have its collective sexual psyche raked over the coals. Repeatedly.

Posted by: Desert Cat at December 25, 2005 06:34 PM (xdX36)

15 Yes, k, I've been "watching" silently, afraid to make myself known. I was going to volunteer to wear one of those overstuffed protective suits for your training sessions. Or to be a suicide bomber for your cause---when you decide that I'm past my "use by" date. On a serious note, I would guess Ms. Dufour has NOT been circumcised.(I apologize, Ms Dufour, if you are reading this--I know it's none of my business!) Remember that the Bin Laden family as a whole is very Western in their thinking and good allies to the US. Many trained with the US Air Force and I've only heard great things about them--how they helped out guys they served with in a big and generous way when they needed it. For example, flying the wife of one fellow pilot to specialized doctors when she was diagnosed with "inoperable" cancer by military docs and buying them a specially-equipted house for her recovery. Most Muslim men I know love their daughters as much as anyone can and would never think of doing such a thing to her--that's why they come to the US or the UK, among other countries. I'm sure you know the story about the Bin Laden scion taking a Palestinian wife because it was the "thing to do" in some circles...and little Osama(Usama) coming from that. And by the way, in my experience, the surest way to keep a woman the way the way she was born is to keep her away from her female relatives, especially her grandmother and aunts. I know. You will say that they are using imposing the rules of the male-dominant society...but still... And about that light bulb thing...I have several readings of that joke in my mind. I'll stipulate that I enjoy them all. Any pics? Sorry! And didn't Lyndie Englund contend those photos were just posed? (For example, those wires were not connected to a power source...something about her "hippie' parents being 'amateur"(?) collectors of crime scene photos?

Posted by: Darrell at December 25, 2005 10:16 PM (iP1+j)

16 Frankly, my issue with Lynddie was her agreeing to anything that involved taking pictures. I really think a lot of the silliness those people engaged in were untrained (and unsupervised, and inappropriate) means of trying to keep people awake at certain times to limit their sleep time and thereby "soften them up" for questioning. Do I have moments of glee at the thought that some of these jokers might be interrogated by Western women? Well . . . . if I did it would be human, right? But I cannot forgive those stupid quasi-frat kids for the damage they did to the American military. Re: genital mutilation, I'm not making a strong analogy with the situation vis a vis the castrati, only pointing out that the action isn't unprecedented. I also think (in addition to what I stated above) that a lot of men have a certain amount of anger at women because we can make babies and they cannot--and I think it goes beyond the issue of making sure that children a man supports are all his own. However, I do agree that the primary goal in female mutilation is to strip the woman of her sexuality, so she won't be motivated to "wander" (and because the culture is hostile to the female body on general principle). "Honor killings," however, are not limited to women suspected of adultery: some unmarried girls are killed by their fathers or mothers or brothers because they were raped. Or because they were seen in the company of a man in a non-approved situation. The life of a woman in most Middle Eastern countries--and the Arab and/or Muslim enclaves in some Western countries (especially in Western Europe) is that of a slave. I guess you could call me a modern-day abolitionist.

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 26, 2005 12:37 AM (zZMVu)

17 DC, I do believe we're in your Mohammedian court - the *our court* of the moment was our focus on the honor-killers and genitalia-destroyers Over There. And it looks like that's exactly the court you'd had in mind yourself. I've shared your disappointment in the lack of our women sticking up for those women since forever, myself. And it stuns me that Americans in general haven't made that connection between their feelings about us and their extreme misogyny. It also hits hard that for many years, that mutilation was described in American media, documentaries, etc. etc. as *circumcision,* those rare times it was mentioned. Most recently, I saw a piece on a tribe in Africa where the narrator tried (not very hard) to keep the sneer out of his voice as he described how girls would run away or commit suicide to escape getting married. He tut-tutted that there was no reason anyone could unearth for this strange and silly behavior. They showed a scene where a grown woman talked with a bride-to-be about marriage, and said how after she decided not to kill herself over her own impending marriage, it wasn't so bad after all; that she not only came to accept her fate, but a year or two later she kind of liked being married. I've no doubt that tribe practices female mutilation. This can require a knife to reopen the woman's flesh on her bloody wedding night. I'd want to run away, too. The times I've heard or read that issue walked around by Americans in the past - and it was largely American males, at least I don't recall any female voices - it was always excused, downplayed, or even held up as sexually *good* for the women. It may have been a National Geographic show where I heard described how so-called *circumcision* lead the women of the group being filmed to want sex all night. See, the tribe had some little saying about it. The documentarians seem to have missed the point that the women may have been doing that because it was impossible to achieve orgasm with their sex nerves cut off, and so they kept futilely trying all night. When the sun comes up, it's time to give up trying and go to work. As you already know, I belong to no ideology myself, feminism included, and don't acquiesce in any group's definitions of what it means to be a True Whatever. I guess that means I'm also an anti-hijacker too, for all sides of any issue. That's one big reason I avoid blogstorms. They use that stuff and actually take it seriously, making *points* with it, and so they aren't that interesting to me. "Your opinion isn't valid because you said *x* which means you're not a real *y*..." proves nothing. But just because there's some ridiculousness going on about Who's the True Believer, Equity or Gender, or whatever, doesn't mean the concept of equality should be tossed out the window. It's one of the founding principles of our country, after all. The thing about labels and buzzwords is, one needs to learn them in order to communicate, to understand what others mean when they use them in an argument. Yet they're rarely clearly defined. With buzzwords, maybe it's because they're new, as buzzwords are. With labels, maybe because all and sundry anywhere nearby gets swept up and put in that one box. So learning those words only gets you so far in your understanding. It may, in fact, prevent thinking more than help it. And that's contrary to my own primary goal in all this, which is to try to figure out the truth. You've said, *Sometimes I don't even know what side of the aisle I'm on. Truth is, I'm a Christian libertarian and there is no aisle for me, nor even a party...It is because of humankind's long sordid history of human authority being turned to evil against the people that I am convinced God is a libertarian.* And just now you said, *It is not inconceivable that I might consider myself to have a place somewhere at the "equity" feminist table. Which is a pretty radical thought for me, as for many years now I have associated all things "feminist" with the screeching harpies of the male-bashing gender feminist left.* I like all this very much. Recently I see not just you but many people saying, --I'm really not in that box after all, am I?... and then extending the same thought to the *other side* - so that now, SOME disagreers may be listened to, their points given brain-time. See, those screechers can't hijack small-f feminism, either. Human authority being turned to evil against the people happens on both sides. (Or all three sides, or 18, or whatever.) And one of the greatest of those evils is the pressure to conform without thinking. Thinking for ourselves means we're fighting back against that evil. Yum! It really is too bad that our sisters over there are helped so little by us here. OTOH: I'm not so sure they need us all that much. They seem to be doing remarkably well, in small but positive ways, without us. And one thing the feminists over there keep bringing up is that they don't want to go to the counterproductive excesses of Western women. Meanwhile, back here at home, maybe we can do something to prevent the upsurge in female mutilations among immigrant populations on our own soil. Big problem in Atlanta.

Posted by: k at December 26, 2005 06:02 AM (M7kiy)

18 I had a longer post this AM, but your server ate it. Perhaps the UN could spend more time on this subject(female multilation) then, rather than concentrating on abortion. Let's just make it clear. You prove yourself to God by confronting temptation and overcoming sin through a combination of willpower and His Aid, not by lopping off body parts associated with the sin. Barring disease or accidents, you are expected to finish your life with the same number of body parts that He gave you. No exceptions! A man that isolates himself from society to avoid sin has proved nothing. You prove your worth by facing the challenges on a continual basis. Be told! Or rather, listen.

Posted by: Darrell at December 26, 2005 04:09 PM (RxH5d)

19 I'd say exceptions can be made for appendices and tonsils, possibly the male foreskin [but let's not have that discussion today], and perhaps excess female boobage [my mother did this, and it made her very happy]. Otherwise, we're in agreement.

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 26, 2005 06:08 PM (zZMVu)

20 All your "exceptions' could fall under my general category of 'disease'...but I won't quibble. I like that agreement part. But doesn't it take three feminists to pry the bulb out of her.... hands?

Posted by: Darrell at December 26, 2005 08:24 PM (YUOWG)

21 Yes. My mother is now cured of "Triple-D-itis."

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 26, 2005 10:10 PM (zZMVu)

22 OK. Amend law to read "medical necessity" instead of disease.

Posted by: Darrell at December 27, 2005 08:19 AM (CFvGO)

23 Well... I mean yeah, if she were to take up jogging or something...

Posted by: Desert Cat at December 27, 2005 06:13 PM (xdX36)

24 I think the rationale was that it gave her back problems, but I secretly think she was just tired of lugging them around after 67 years. I just think it's funny, because all heterosexual men and women of slender build don't understand what a hassle it can be. I'm not complaining, mind you—it's saved me a pretty penny on car repairs and whatnot for three decades, but it sounds like a tempting option for one's sunset years. And I do resent the fact that it costs more to have 'em lopped off than it does to get 'em "enhanced." Doesn't that seem a bit unfair?

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 27, 2005 07:58 PM (zZMVu)

25 Once you get the medical diagnosis, insurance should cover reduction surgery. Enhancement is another matter, barring medical necessity. And I better say this time, for example, after a mastectomy, or to correct a birth defect. Blog comments should not require precision! Or forethought. Or correct spelling. Or actual humor. I submit the Left side of the Blogosphere as proof.

Posted by: Darrell at December 27, 2005 10:12 PM (eEMSh)

26 Of course, some of us just like giving others a hard time.

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 27, 2005 10:49 PM (zZMVu)

27 It's always appreciated.

Posted by: Darrell at December 28, 2005 08:05 AM (NEzjW)

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. . . can be very satisfying. Two days in a row of it knocked me out, though. Who knew that cleaning and paint prep both involve lots of deep-knee bends?

The paint-prep work also means getting up early, but it's a full day, so it ends up being more lucrative. I charge $40 to clean in the Pasadena area, and $50-60 to clean in West Los Angeles/Santa Monica. Paint prep work in Manhattan Beach netted me $123 for a full day at the bottom rung as an unskilled laborer. (That is, if I learn to do stencils and specialty finishes it'll be more.)

Of course, copyediting/proofreading/fact-checking pays $25-35 an hour, but requires top-notch communication from clients in terms of what level of checking they want. Oddly enough, many publishing houses just don't know. They think they do, but they don't.

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We finally got around to watching it tonight, and I'll just set down a few impressions before I'm tempted to peek at the reviews that came out when it was released. (I try to avoid movie buzz whenever possible before I see the films in question. Sometimes that means holding out for an extended period, as in this case, because I'm cheap cheap cheap and often prefer to see 'em on DVD. So sue me.)

1) I have the advantage of being a sort of space alien myself. At least, the previous versions of War of the Worlds all fall into one of the little lacunae in my pop culture knowledge, so I was able to go in fairly innocent: I mean, I know the premise, and I'm aware of the events surrounding the first radio broadcast. But I didn't have many details.

2) I knew I'd dig the special effects. No disappointments there. My inner 17-year-old boy was pleased. Thank you, Industrial Light and Magic. Don't ever leave me; it's a cold, cruel world.

3) I had several quarrels with the plot. One is obvious, and probably unavoidable: the original story has the aliens running afoul of Earth's native micro-organisms, rather than being overcome by our protagonist. As I understand it, that was in Wells' original, and so it probably needed to remain. But I certainly experienced a consquent letdown at the end of the movie. The screenwriters at least give us Tom Cruise besting one of the metallic monsters, so the damage to the narrative arc is limited. But it's there: an intrinsic weakness.

I als saw some apparently inexplicable actions, such as Dakota Fanning running outside just in time to be captured by space aliens, after sitting tight in the basement through many tense encounters.

(Attila the Hub: asn't it a bit odd to watch her scream as the tripod comes for her, and yet stay in one place?

Joy: At least it's a child acting in this fashion. If it were the 1960s, we'd be watching full-grown women behaving just as inteptly for no other reason than the screenwriter needed 'em to.)

It would have been nice for her to have a compelling reason to flee at this specific time. I didn't buy the one I was offered. Fact is, something prosaic like a snake in the corner of the basement might have worked better than yet more alien-related effects.

I also would have appreciated it if we'd been given a cursory explanation of how Justin Chatwin's character—the son—survives his hours offstage. Or how, despite his apparant devotion to his young sister, he has the impulse to abandon her to a biological father he doesn't really quite trust.

Nice little display of how a fatherless girl can end up looking up to her big brother. I think I'd have been happier to see him bully her just once, though. Because in real life, boys do that. They abuse this power. You can trust me on this. No complaints, but human nature—you know—rarely changes.

4) I'm aware that young Miss Fanning is getting most of the press attention, and she did a fine job, here. But the Justin Chatwin was amazing, and IMHO underappreciated. Those youngsters can both act. (Yes. A twenty-three-year-old is a "youngster." Cruise should have had himself arrested after wrestling with the kid.)

5) Is there any discernable difference between this movie and Signs? It isn't just Attila the Hub's complaint that this movie all took place in Tim Robbins' basement, just as Signs was unduly limited to Mel Gibson's farmhouse. There was the overall claustrophobic feel to it, and the neurotic little girl at its center. (Not that I have problems with nuerotic little girls: some claim I am one myself.)

As with Signs, it would have been nice to get a sense of the invasion's scope.

And I'd like to know why the casting director decided to have Tim Robbins reprise his Mystic River role here? Is there a shortage of actors? Do we need to recycle them? Can we get more of 'em from Alaska?

It was a nice little piece of eye candy. But I yearned for it to be more, and I felt like it could have really been something special with only a bit of tweaking.

But they never listen to me, do they? And now it's tragically too late.

Thanks for the visual callbacks, however, that the framing of pictures through broken glass. Joy likes. And the tripod creatures reflected by their tripod technology.

Steven, call me before the next movie. I'm a smart girl, and I can help you. It doesn't have to be this way.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:56 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Tired like backpacking tired. Minus the clean air. But when I finally sleep, it's going to be nice.

And I earned enough to get us a small tree, and a few gifts. So I'm stringing up lights tomorrow and buying a turkey. Yeah—Attila the Hub likes turkey for both holidays, even though they're only a month apart. And turkeys are so cheap and easy it's not like I can argue.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:51 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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. . . to learn a useful skill. Maybe. Wish me luck.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:30 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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. . . truly makes me want to give up blogging now and again. Thank God I don't try for humor—at least, not most of the time.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:10 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Hubris explains it all, over at In DC Journal.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've been approved for Blogger's Alley at CPAC this coming February 9-11.

So I'll be going to Washington, D.C. in seven weeks or whatever. I'll be renewing my contacts at Americans for Rice while I'm in town, as well as meeting with a few of the Cotillion blogstresses to plot our strategy for world domination.

Where will I be getting the dough to pay for my cheap redeye to the East Coast, my usual travel diet of protein bars, and one overpriced gin and tonic, you enquire?

Well, that's where you come in: I'll be trying to get one big media or corporate sponsorship, but at least half of it will come from you people, in $10, $20, and $30 increments. If you support the idea of citizen journalism, speak to me in that language I love: the mother tongue of your disposable income.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:31 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm officially In the Holiday Mood. Cranky, obsessive, petulant. Parsimonious, unyielding, hostile. The hair-trigger lady: jealous of my time, possessive of my dough. Suspicious that all the merriment around me is some kind of trick.

Merry fucking Christmas.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:17 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Congratulations, Elton.

Now everyone's going to be upset at me. But when I think of all the stupid energy that poor man put into pretending to be straight in the 70s, it really frosts me. Virginia Woolf: "Opinions that one now pastes in a book labelled cock–a–doodledum and keeps for reading to select audiences on summer nights once drew tears, I can assure you."

My nieces and nephews don't remember this, but there was a time when it was assumed that a man had to be straight to produce world-class rock 'n' roll. It all seems so far away, but I remember it. All the "debate" about Elton, and about Freddie Mercury too, for that matter.

What a waste.

Best wishes, Buddy. I remember when rock was young . . .

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:14 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Here's yet another thing I've never heard of before, and yet somehow "need." Topless sandals.

You know: so I won't have those unattractive tan lines from my existing flip-flops.

(Via Lair.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:50 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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