And I can barely whistle

How exactly do you figure out you can do this? Must drive his parents crazy.

Watching Susan Boyle

I could write a long post on the cultural significance of how we enjoy watching someone else experience something we have already experienced, but I'm sure its been done by someone smarter than me. Still, interesting.

Survivor: Tocantins, Episode 10 Recap

Wow. I thought this was going to be a boring episode, watching everyone slowly torture Sierra to death. I had high hopes for her winning immunity, just because I wanted to know what the others would do in that case, but stinking Debbie had to ruin that dream.

I hate Cartman-I-mean-Coach. But then he says things like "I can bench 300 lbs and Brendan was saying the other day that maybe he couldn't" and then I love him all over again. Because he is a joke, and though he totally doesn't realize it (and never will) the joke is on him. My second favorite moment was when Jeff asked him at tribal that if he was really so concerned with taking all the warriors to the end, then why did he vote off Brendan? And Coach had no real answer, but just blabbered on about being victorious or whatever. It doesn't really matter, except to illustrate that the way Coach views his world is only halfway based on the world the rest of us live in. He believes what he says, the end. But I was openly pleased that he missed out on yet another reward challenge. HA!

I should be more upset about Tyson getting booted, because he was really my choice to win. He acts the bastard, but mostly because (I think) he understands what it takes to get screen time. Even his speech at the end he was totally gracious, understanding that it was a game. His only flaw was that he was mean to Sierra. He thought he had her, and he got cocky and was disrespectful to her, which I just don't like. So watching his cocky smile disappear gave me great pleasure. HA!

I don't hate Sierra as much as everyone else seems to. But I'm afraid there aren't that many people that I LIKE left either. People have moments of greatness, but then seem to fade. I don't know what Taj is thinking these past few weeks, she has been pretty invisible. It seems Stephen and JT are running the show, but even they somehow seem like second-tier level players compared to other seasons. Oh well. I imagine Coach or Sierra will go next week, depending on who is the most annoying around camp.

But one question: when will people learn, that when you enter the merge with numbers, you CANNOT get over confident, you MUST wipe out the other tribe before turning on your own. Otherwise you doom yourself to failure. It seems to me that Erinn, of all people, is the only one with a prayer of seeing the final four. (Or farther, depending on how tight JT and Stephen and Taj really are, because she is a safety net at final tribal for not getting any votes.)

I can't wait to see how Coach reacts to his assistant Coach getting axed right under his nose. Deliciousness is coming, I can smell it.

PS - Yay for Allison not getting booted on Idol. Whew! I like everyone, but Matt should go next.

Do as I say, not as I do

Besides just the basic human decency required to admit that torture is, you know, bad, here is yet another example of the incredibly frustrating double-speak the pro-torture crowd likes to employ, by way of a Presidential Proclamation issued by President Bush in 2003.

The highlight:

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture

The italics are mine. The mortifying disgust and horror are also mine.

Oh My God, I Am Linking To Fox News

I never thought I would post a link from a Fox "News" program, but here goes.



I am amazed and hugely saddened by this debate over torture. It makes me so angry because it seems like such a no-brainer to me, and for anyone to defend such an evil thing simply for partisanship is, well, staggering. Whether it works or not (and I would say that it doesn't) is totally irrelevant. IRRELEVANT. It is an act of evil, period, the end. I've been to the S-21 Torture prison in Cambodia, and decades later you can still feel the evil that was done there. One of the few survivors was a painter, and there is a prominently displayed painting he made of a person being waterboarded. When I was there nine years ago, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was clearly torture.

I believe our actions set a precedent, and no matter how badly Peggy Noonan wants to "just walk on by" and not pay any attention, I don't believe we have the luxury of ignoring the fact that this happened under our watch just because dealing with it might be uncomfortable and hard. And I'm not talking about Lynndie England. But we have to clean this mess up in no uncertain terms before we can move on and get it behind us.

This is America. We are better than that. And props to Shep Smith for breaking the partisanship line and saying it.

Survivor: Tocantins, Episode 9 Recap

Coach is a buffoon. I suppose this was the episode when the scales tipped a little though, and instead of loving to hate him, I actually started to get annoyed by him. The problem was that, while I was all set to root for Brendan, whom I think is nice if boring, but then he said something like "If I can get JT to win then it will feel like I won." Uh, what? I'm suddenly getting mad at the camera crew for never capturing JT on film working his voodoo magic that makes everyone around him fall madly in love with him. I mean, he seems nice and all, but it isn't like he is Susan Boyle or something. So then I'm stuck rooting for Brendan as the anti-Coach, but not because I specifically want Brendan to stay either. I think this show has gotten too soft on the quitters, if I were Jeff I'd throw Brendan's torch down after a comment like that.

I still think Coach and all his shenanigans are funny, but I just can't ignore the arrogance any longer. His tall tale about almost getting eaten in the Amazon was, well, I don't know what it was. Maybe he is just the worst story-teller in the world. Or maybe he is like Cartman and with an extra-size ego actually believes his schtick. Also, I want to give him a boot to the head every time he calls himself a dragonslayer. Peter MacNicol made a better dragonslayer than he does. Seriously.

Anyway, thanks to the editing, I was sure Coach was leaving, just for the satisfaction of it all. And I'm still ticked off that he didn't, because that is the way Hollywood is supposed to work, with me getting satisfaction watching villains getting their deserved due. Now we'll have to endure him gloating, which is so terrible that I'm actually feeling sorry for Sierra. Sierra!

My only solace was the realization, afterwards, that JT had just, in fact, won the game. We'll see what they say next week, but going into the vote I figured it was much smarter for Taj, Stephen and JT to stick with Brendan and Sierra, because in the end they would be three against two and could do what they wanted. (Or four against two if they kept Erinn, which they could do easily.) But now I'm thinking, the got rid of Brendan because it was easy to do. But now that they've split up the other team, they are totally in control, whatever Coach might think. They could string Coach along and vote out Sierra next week if they wanted to, and still have the numbers to vote out Coach and Tyson next. And I see no reason why they won't. For someone who was in imminent danger for so long, Erinn sure has done well for herself.

I loved the rope challenge, almost as much as I loved Coach not winning the rafting challenge. I also love winners, and Tyson is making an impression.

I will forever wish Brendan had outwitted Coach, rather than the other way around. And why didn't Brendan, when he stood up to leave, just hand the idol to Sierra? That would have been awesome, and would have saved her for at least one week.