politics is politics

okay, so i'm not the most politically aware and active person, but the presidential race is drawing my interest pretty well up to this point. the drama is a bit much and the dirty fighting is getting out of control, but it's shaping up to be a battle to the finish.
i am starting to lose my hopes of an obama/clinton ticket though. i thought it might be possible when they started to talk about keeping it cleaner from here on out, but the debate from the other night made it seem like one was going to throw punches at the other soon. edwards came out smelling sweet with his non-confrontational golly-gee-shucks answers. oh them good ol' southern boys sure can charm ya. looks to me like he's courting the number two job again. one of my newsroom contemporaries is telling me they think he's not interested in being a vp candidate again, but it looked like he was trying to play nice with both hillary and barack on the tv.
i know it's jumping the gun a bit since the primary season is a long way from over, but the vp questions are going to be coming soon enough. seeing rendell play politics by endorsing hillary, while still telling the country that obama or edwards would be a fine candidate, he might stand a chance to seeing dome v.p. courting. not a bad choice of running mate for hillary if she's thinking about it. while it isn't her main concern in choosing her running mate, clinton/rendell would be a definite lock in a key swing state like pennsylvania. he would also be a good balance, image-wise. politically, not far from clinton, but he plays the man's man role very well. stern. tough. masculine. on a ticket where the major concern in a lot of backwards parts of our country is hillary's possession of ovaries, that might be the balance she needs to sway some of those hicks. yes, i'm talking to you The South.
my personal choice is senator obama for president. i'd love to see him and hillary on a ticket together, but it's looking less likely by the day. in this volatile sport of presidential politics, anything is possible. we'll see how things unfold in s.c. and then "super tuesday" will prove some things, if not determine a likely winner.
until then, i'll be glued to the cnn and the associated press wire.

CHOKE is on it's way

Chuck Palahniuk's amazing novel, Choke, was made into a movie by first time director Clark Gregg and will star Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston. i just learned from chuckpalahniuk.net that fox searchlight pictures bought the film at sundance to distribute it.

this excites me because it's my favorite book of his, and he is my favorite author, so i'm obviously going to see this as soon as i can.

and the same website has rumored that another of mr Palahniuk's books, survivor, has been optioned and might be in the pre-production stages soon. thanks for being ever-so-useful The Internet.
http://imdb.com/title/tt1024715/
http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/

back at it.

sorry faithful readers for my extended hiatus there. all two of you can stop crying now.

i need to address a serious topic. okay. maybe not that serious. just the presidential elections.

does it make sense to anyone else that iowa and new hampshire are on the forefront of what our country is going to have to choose from when it comes to the farce that is the actual election this fall? okay, the choices are not exactly stellar to begin with, but then several of the candidates will be weeded out of the already mildly worthless field by the time "super tuesday" gets here because they spent too much money and time campaigning in FREAKING IOWA!!! that podunk state that has less people than our friendly neighborhood city of philadelphia. (although probably a bigger voter turnout than philly...) but they get to give unexpected life to huckawhozzit? a guy who admits to not believing in science and evolution because his feeble mind can't wrap itself around the notion that maybe evolution was the road that god (or yahweh or vishnu or whomever you choose to call that creating force that so many fight about Its title) chose to use to get to where we're at now. and possibly where we're going next.

while i think pandering to voters is the game every one of them is playing, it would seem that certain candidates are honing the craft more than ever lately. i like john mccain, but he is kissing so much christian butt lately that i almost expect him open every speech with a prayer. (i have no problem with people loving their religions, but the whole seperation of church and state thing ring a bell?) and hillary clinton CRYING at a mini-rally in new hampshire? i know everyone is calling her a machine and accusing her of being heartless, but really? crying? but that staged human side seems to have propelled her just far enough to eek out a victory in one of the nations smallest states that means next to nothing in the november elections, but has made itself important enough to all but weed out candidates like ron paul and bill richardson and joe biden (who got beat by write-ins).

meh, i guess that's enough complaining for tonight.
--jb--