The faces behind the cartoons.

Here's a nice CNN clip about the guys who do those JibJab cartoons. They assert -- believably, I think -- that they're bipartisan.

Meanwhile...

Richard is struggling with his soul in Crete and Santorini, Tonya is agonizing about sex and the single older woman, Chris is coping with "naked time," and Oscar's having another "Existential Friday."

Me, I'm going shopping.

"I Shouldn't Be Alive."

Do you watch that TV show? It's always about a couple guys who go out on some free-spirited day trip and get in way over their heads. It's harrowing, but, given the title of the show, you know they're not going to die.

I think about that show when reading some of Nina's dispatches from Europe:

And so it is no surprise that in the afternoon, I want time out.

I want to climb the mountain that shelters Dubrovnik. Sure, I remember the warnings about landmines. But I also read the poignant accounts of mothers scaling the summit daily to pray for their sons whose lives were lost on these hills. And I hear there is a path. And if you stick to the path, you are safe.

I twist daughters’ arms and we set off.

It takes no time at all for me to get lost. One path becomes a dead end. Another leads to a seemingly deserted house with chained dogs growling the minute I come within 100 meters of them.

We know she lives to blog about it.

Scalia rebukes his hamhanded fans in Congress.

"No one is more opposed to using foreign law than I am, but I'm darned if I think it's up to Congress to direct the Supreme Court how to make its decisions."

Let's have a response from the congressional Scalia fans:

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who has co-sponsored a nonbinding resolution against the use of foreign law, said that Scalia's comments were "like being told your favorite baseball player disagrees with your approach to hitting."

Scalia's "brilliance," Feeney said, "has not convinced a majority of the court. He needs our help, even if he doesn't want it."

Feeney said that Scalia's remarks may have damaged chances for his resolution's passage, since they will probably be quoted by its opponents.

What a desperate baseball metaphor!

So Feeney thinks Scalia may have undercut his resolution a tad? Perhaps -- just perhaps -- his opponents will now quote his hero against him? How hilariously embarrassing for Feeney. I was only trying to help.

"Several dozen students and faculty turned their backs and lifted signs saying 'Our commencement is not your platform.'"

John McCain gives a commencement address at the New School.

Some 1,200 students and faculty had signed petitions asking the university president, former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, to rescind his invitation for McCain to speak, saying McCain's support for the Iraq war and opposition to gay rights and abortion were not in keeping with the prevailing views on campus.

Kerrey urged students to exercise the open-mindedness he said was at the heart of the university's progressive history.

"Sen. McCain, you have much to teach us," Kerrey said toward the beginning of the ceremony, drawing a smattering of boos and hisses.

More details from Ari Berman's blog at The Nation:

The Senator spoke in a dull monotone, without his usual charisma or charm. He was noticeably deflated by the crowd's harsh reception towards him. Remarks such as "I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq," were met with loud boos.

"I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country's interests and values required it."

"Wrongly!" one student boomed from the back. Sitting directly behind us, Maureen Dowd and Adam Nagourney of the New York Times, chuckled.

As McCain droned on, students became increasingly restless. One cried, "This speech sucks!" Several students walked out early.

I just read that last block quote to my son John. So, what do you think of that -- yelling out "Wrongly!"? John: "He's just asking for it when he phrases it like that."

Yeah, McCain. Get some better speech writers. Don't lob softballs at the hecklers.

And isn't he, really, just asking for it by going about giving speeches at politically liberal colleges? He's taking advantage of an opportunity, a shot at a captive audience that's under tremendous social pressure to sit still and listen. How hard can you be on the audience that also sees fit to take advantage?

Yeah, yeah, everyone should be respectful and civil. It would be better to find what you can appreciate about a man of his stature when he deigns to appear at your institution -- his service and suffering in wartime, his long years of statesmanship. But I'm not going to get too exercised about this -- and I doubt if he is.

UPDATE: More details here:

Mr. McCain seemed uneasy, but stuck to his script and did not acknowledge the barbs. As [a student] had predicted [in one of the earlier speeches], he spoke about the importance of civil discourse, and he reiterated his defense of the war.

"I believe the benefits of success will justify the costs and risks," he said. The protests grew louder and more frequent as he spoke. Some graduates walked out. Others laughed. When Mr. McCain returned to policy after briefly quoting Yeats, someone shouted, "More poetry!"

At another point, someone yelled, "We're graduating, not voting!"

Were the students inappropriate if he was inappropriate? He ought to have shown up prepared for the occasion. At the very least, he should have prepared a graduation speech and not a political speech. A genuinely with-it politician would also have come prepared to talk directly and spontaneously to the situation unfolding in front of him. You can go on about the students' rudeness if you want, but what is more important is whether he's a politician who has what it takes to run for President. The fact is he sleepwalked through what could have been his moment. But Mr. McCain seemed uneasy... stuck to his script and did not acknowledge the barbs.

"He could so easily live in an elitist world. Instead, he tromps around in shabby clothes, a ridiculous coat that he has some Yiddish word for..."

"... and a cabdriver hat. He answers his own phone a lot. He's always accessible. He's one step below the Supreme Court, but he's such an everyday man."

Goodbye to Judge Edward R. Becker, who died today.

Cartoons and philosophy.

Why philosophy fits so well in cartoon form (like "The Simpsons"):

Philosophy needs to be real in the sense that it has to make sense of the world as it is, not as we imagine or want it to be. But philosophy deals with issues on a general level. It is concerned with a whole series of grand abstract nouns: truth, justice, the good, identity, consciousness, mind, meaning and so on.

Cartoons abstract from real life in much the same way philosophers do. Homer is not realistic in the way a film or novel character is, but he is recognisable as a kind of American Everyman. His reality is the reality of an abstraction from real life that captures its essence, not as a real particular human who we see ourselves reflected in.

The satirical cartoon world is essentially a philosophical one because to work it needs to reflect reality accurately by abstracting it, distilling it and then presenting it back to us, illuminating it more brightly than realist fiction can.

Killing the brilliant architects.

In the name of research. Quite justifiably, I think! The results are impressive.

"The thing about the left is that they want everybody to feel good."

Said the Rev. Tony Campolo, the liberal Baptist minister (who was once an advisor to President Clinton). Commenting on the Spiritual Activism Conference, he was trying to explain why the religionists on his side aren't as effective as the religionists of the right. "We didn't get on the same page with everyone, and it is about getting on the same page."

You see, the left values pluralism, and this virtue of theirs is what holds them back:

Turnout at the Spiritual Activism Conference is high, but if the gathering is any indication, the biggest barrier for liberals may be their regard for pluralism: for letting people say what they want, how they want to, and for trying to include everyone's priorities, rather than choosing two or three issues that could inspire a movement.

Well, the liberal attitude about religion probably ought to lead you to want to keep religion out of politics, but, as the participants at the conference realize, if you do that, you sacrifice some clout at election time. The other side is using religion, so we're fools if we don't do it too. But liberals tend to notice and be offended by the use of religion for political purposes, so there really is a double bind here.

[Rabbi Michael Lerner of the magazine Tikkun] called on the activists at All Souls Church to define progressive faith, rather than have politicians do it. He said research begun years ago showed that Americans were experiencing a deep spiritual crisis but that only conservative Christians had responded to it, with an agenda that he said "backs the ethos of selfishness and materialism in our society."

"They get away with this because the left isn't even in the relevant ballpark," Rabbi Lerner said. When people on the left "hear talk of a spiritual crisis, they think it's some kind of New Age flakery or a code word for homophobia, sexism and racism," he said.

He urged participants to offer a real alternative to the ideas that many conservative Christian groups promulgate. But identifying those alternatives proved to be the hard part for many at the conference.

Mr. Campolo, the Baptist minister, explained to the participants in a seminar that many people on Capitol Hill were religious, and that to reach them and to establish authority, liberals should rely on the Bible.

"You have no right to be a spiritual leader if you haven't read Scripture," he told the group. "People in Congress respect the Book, even if they don't know what it says. If we don't recognize this, we don't know squat."

A young man with long hair and a tunic challenged Mr. Campolo.

"I thought this was a spiritual progressives' conference," he said. "I don't want to play the game of 'the Bible says this or that,' or that we get validation from something other than ourselves. We should be speaking from our hearts."

This really is a difficult problem for liberals, but it is also a problem for conservatives. I think the key is to respect religion, but not to use it directly in politics. Religion can help individuals and religious groups identify values that motivate them to work in the political sphere, but their political goals should then be framed in a way that will not require them to rely on religious belief to persuade the rest of us to vote with them. I wish both liberals and conservatives would try to do that. I'm severely put off by the grasping after political power that comes in the form of religion.

What kinds of stores stay open 24 hours a day?

For one, the new huge and glamorous Apple Store in New York City.

Don't you love Apple? And if you don't, doesn't it drive you crazy that Apple is lovable?

"It's absolute Democratic cannibalism."

Fighting Joe Lieberman from the left. (The quote is from John F. Droney, a former Democratic state chairman in Connecticut.)

A growing cast of prominent activists is backing [Democratic challenger Ned] Lamont. Markos Moulitsas, who advised the presidential campaign of Howard Dean in 2004 and founded the blog Daily Kos, is appearing in a campaign commercial for Mr. Lamont....

"A very simple thing happened that changed Democratic politics dramatically, and that was that the war turned bad," [said Al From, the founder and chief executive of the Democratic Leadership Council], adding of the senator's critics: "There's a group in our party that makes a lot of noise and I don't think they've ever won an election. They're trying to take out one of the great statesmen our party has and that's wrong."

Ah, it's sad, this message that there no such thing as a liberal hawk. I wonder what Hillary's thinking about all this.

"There were two types of senators... the briefed, and the briefed-nots."

That's Sheryl Gay Stolberg's sharp take on the Hayden confirmation hearings:

The former were mostly polite. The latter, especially Democrats, threw the Congressional equivalent of a temper tantrum.

General Hayden, President Bush's nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency, invoked what he termed "a very crude airman's metaphor" in suggesting he believed lawmakers should have been informed earlier by the White House of its secretive domestic eavesdropping program, which he oversaw when he ran the National Security Agency.

"If you want people with the craft," the general said, "you've got to put them on the manifest."

So Hayden sets himself apart from the administration on the one issue that is reliably riling the Senators, and the Senators' behavior bolster the assumption that if we only knew the details of the program, we would approve.

***

Hayden seems to have a way with words, as he found different ways of saying the same thing, instead of just annoyingly repeating a stock phrase in response to the many questions asking for information he could only provide in the closed session. Example: "I will give you just a touch more granularity in the closed session."

"I think it's an intense recreation of what happened that day and that might be disturbing for people."

Trailers for Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" begin in theaters this weekend and the report is that the movie's producers have warned theater owners that some people might find the images upsetting.

Co-producer Stacey Sher told CBS News, "They wanted the theatre owners to know that people might inquire at the box office whether or not the trailer would be shown and then it would be their decision whether they wanted to see it or not." Michael Shamberg, another producer of the film, said, "I think it's an intense recreation of what happened that day and that might be disturbing for people."

Presumably, they're trying to drum up interest in their movie. You can watch the trailer here. Do you see disturbingly "intense," gritty realism or disturbingly saccharine melodrama? From the slow-moving, over-clean cops getting up the gumption to volunteer to rescue people to the woman smelling the extra-white sheets of her missing loved one to the trapped man scrawling "I [heart] U" on a scrap of paper it is old-fashioned, maudlin dreck. Appalling.

IN THE COMMENTS: Troy expresses puzzlement: "maudlin and sentimental don't seem [Stone's] style...." I offer this explanation:

I believe that in this case "maudlin and sentimental" is an expression of Stone's low opinion of the intelligence and sensibility of Americans. He's talking down to us and thinks 9/11 has turned us into simple-minded sentimentalists. He may also have that attitude that Americans were admirable right after 9/11, in the immediate pain of the events, when we concentrated on grief and helping victims, but that we subsequently lost our way (by fighting back). The sentimentalism thus essentially expresses opposition to the war on terrorism.

UPDATE: Chris simulblogs the trailer. A taste:

"Okay, listen up. We've got to evacuate the tower." The police stand still; there is a moment of them silently looking at him and pouting. Finally, one officer breaks the silence, saying, "I got it, Sarge." He then steps forward--much like the scene in Jerry Maguire, where the office sits in silence after Tom Cruise's speech, and Renee Zellweger eventually gets up, and says, "I will go with you!"

"If you want to leave, good riddance."

Said Arlen Specter to Russ Feingold, who then walked out of the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. The subject was the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which the committee approved.

"I don't need to be lectured by you. You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., shouted after Sen. Russ Feingold declared his opposition to the amendment, his affinity for the Constitution and his intention to leave the meeting.

"If you want to leave, good riddance," Specter finished.

"I've enjoyed your lecture, too, Mr. Chairman," replied Feingold, D-Wis., who is considering a run for president in 2008. "See ya."

If I say I think Feingold won that exchange, are you going to think it's just because I'm opposed to the amendment?

IN THE COMMENTS: Doug notes the phrase "You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I" and asks "Could it be that Senator Specter is admitting that the Senate has done a pretty crappy job of protecting the Constitution over the years?" Very astute! In fact, the expression "You're no more of an X than I am" is normally used as a way of saying "You're not an X at all." The speaker is assuming that he's not an X and everyone knows it.

What are some good techniques for planning a scenic drive across what looks like a boring expanse of map?

My standard technique would be to look at one of those maps that has a green dotted line on the scenic routes. Surely, there must be some better ideas.

Think about my predicament. I love to drive in the landscapes that begin about 700 miles west of where I live. I don't want to fly somewhere and then rent a car. I want my car. I'm tired of devoting Day 1 to getting past the boring by using the quickest route and occupying my mind with audiobooks. I want to make the driving itself interesting.

Take into account the need to find a place to stop for the night. In these vast expanses of America, it's hard to find a decent motel, let alone a place that I'd actually feel good about. Camping is not an option -- as you probably know by now.

"The dispute initially centred around an unruly clematis plant..."

A woman with the prophetic last name of Wilding, goes wild -- hits bottom -- in a town called Bottomley.

The 57-year-old woman is accused of "dumping dead animals, rubbish, dog faeces, glass and nails around the village, damaging neighbours' cars, and plying local children with alcohol... booby-trapping paint pots, dazzling neighbours' homes with floodlights, throwing compost at her neighbours and assaulting them with her wheelbarrow."

"And I feel just like Jesus' son."

No, this post isn't about "The Da Vinci Code." It's a nice found video of Lou Reed singing "Heroin," back in 1972, with John Cale playing the electric viola. (Via Boing Boing.) And then Nico sings "Femme Fatale." She's got brown hair here, and she's somewhere along the way in her stupendous decline.

The "Top Chef" finale -- Part I.

Tiffani, Harold, and Dave, the final 3, find out there's a first round that will cut the competition down to the 2. It's an extremely high pressure threefold task, which seems designed to eliminate Dave, whose frazzling under pressure has been highlighted for our amusement all season. And that's exactly what happens.

The chefs must cook for room service at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and have only 30 minutes to do each of the three tasks.

Task #1. They have to make a hot and a cold dish for "high rollers," who -- unbeknownst to them -- turn out to be their most recently eliminated competitors -- Leann, Stephen, and Miguel. Since we know them so well, they're much more fun to watch than the usual judges. They like Harold's food best. (They don't know it's Harold's.) They complain about the lack of caviar. The chefs had access to an endless supply of luxury ingredients, yet no one picked up the caviar.

Task #2. They need to make 4 snacks for the high stakes poker players. Tiffani lets her snootiness get the better of her (again) and sees this as a opportunity to push poker players to new levels of sophistication. But when one of the players says "I need a fork," she's doomed. Dave wins this one -- mainly through spring rolls.

Task #3. The Cirque du Soleil acrobats have to fortify themselves with protein and carbs and not fat, the contestants are told: make 3 dishes for them. That big slab of Kobe beef is high fat, but the acrobats love it. That's Dave's contribution, and he could have won Task #3 with it, but he makes the monumental blunder of only providing 2 dishes, so Harold wins again (with something I can't even remember now). Dave lamely explains that he got confused from all the pressure: "I heard 'two.'"

Obviously, Harold is the best of the finalists, so the question is whether Tiffani or Dave has to go. Tiffani didn't win any of the tasks, but Dave's blunder cannot be ignored. It was an elaborate and well-designed competition that we just watched, but in the end, what mattered was that one mistake. Dave should have just dumped a can of caviar in a bowl to have a third dish.

So now, the drama that is Dave is over, and Part 2 of the finale, next week, will be all about the super-competent, steely cool Tiffani and Harold. We've been edited into love for Harold. But let Tiffani come out next week, with her red hair flaming, and fight like mad for the title.

Nevaeh -- "heaven" spelled backwards -- is suddenly the 70th-most-popular girl's name.

It's been over a century since a name has gotten so popular so quickly. And we know exactly why it happened. It's these characters:



She's the original Nevaeh, and he's Sonny Sandoval, the Christian rock star who named her and said so on MTV back in the year 2000.

You know, you could engage in more subtle Sandoval-copying: try spelling some other words you like backwards and see if you getting anything pronounceable and pretty. For example, I love the word "freedom." So: Modeerf! Aw, c'mon, honey, we can call him Mo. "Liberty"? Ytrebil! He's a rebel. Or should I say it rebel. How about Ymonotua.

Just don't do it with "love."

"American Idol" -- the results.

The final 2 will be revealed tonight.

Over 50 million votes....

Oh, my! It's a one hour results show. How will they pad it out?

Okay, the Ford commercial was the coolest thing that ever happened on the show. If my TiVo catches up to the present, I'm just going to go back and rewatch that. The three Idols were in full old-age makeup, singing "Young at Heart." Elliott was insanely old-mannish. And Kat, well, she was making fun of her propensity to display her posterior. It was very padded and she -- as an 80 year old woman -- bobbed it up and down, repeatedly, right in front of the camera. Taylor seemed to be much the same person he actually is. In fact, I'm thinking his gray hair is what gave them the idea for this awesome commercial.

The kids go back to their home towns. Taylor goes back to Birmingham, Alabama, where he briefly performs with his band, then brushes them off to go be in his own parade. The mayor, a black man, gives him the key to the city. Then we see him cheered by crowd after crowd, and everybody's white. We see him inside the governor's mansion (which is fabulous).

Back in the theater, Taylor sings the Doobie Brothers' "Taking It to the Streets." In the lines, "Take this message to my brother/You will find him everywhere/Wherever people live together/tied in poverty's despair" he shouts out "in America" after "Wherever people live together." Does that have some discernable political slant? Or is there a Doobie performance where they shout out "in America"? Anyway, it strikes me as quite political for "American Idol."

Katharine McPhee is from Hollywood. What? An Idol not from the south? It's hard to do the home town show from Hollywood... Ryan asks her about her parents, and she says, "To be honest, I don't talk to them that much." Ow. That's going to hurt with the voters! Now she sings "Think" and she's good on the "Freedom!" lines.

Finally, Elliott Yamin. He goes back to Richmond, Virginia. "Can y'all smell the sweet Virginia air?" he says from the limo. He has the nicest home town people. At one point, there's a closeup on his mom, his overwhelmed mom. Back in the theater, we see mom -- she's beaming -- Elliott -- he's crying -- and Paula -- tears are streaming out of her eyes and mucus out of her nose. He sings "Moody's Mood for Love." It's sweet. Restrained. We ache for Elliott. Must he go??

I speed over some crap with Clive Davis and get to the "reveal." Ryan displays the percentages: 33.06%, 33.26%, and 33.68%. Whose name is behind the o6? Ryan asks. "Let's see it now." Elliott Yamin. "The journey ends. But you have a lot to be proud of."

Elliott's last words: "I'm just a counter clerk in a pharmacy. I've been waiting my whole life for a shot like this."

Bye, Elliott. Dear, sweet Elliott.