Blue Christmas.

The view from my window, tonight at nightfall:



It seems that every year, there's something that gets us started singing "Blue Christmas." Like last year, it was another photograph: here.

Now we're listening to various versions of "Blue Christmas" -- first Elvis (the best), then Ringo, then the Beach Boys (the second best), Jon Bon Jovi, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson (nicely zippy), Fats Domino, Low, Leon Redbone, the Platters, Chris Isaak, Dean Martin, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Harry Connick Jr., Sheryl Crow (the worst!), Booker T. & the MGs, John Holt (reggae does not fit this song), Tammy Wynette... I note that most artists try to sing the song like Elvis -- it's pretty much homage to Elvis for Ringo, Bon Jovi, and many others. Too many people make a big point of slowing the song way down (which is, apparently, a way of life for Low). Ah, now we're back to Elvis, with a different version, from the 1968 TV special. The greatness of Elvis really came through in that little exercise.

You'll be doin' all right, with your Christmas of white/But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas.

Bush at 50% approval.

The Rasmussen poll has Bush at a 50% approval rating, up 6 points since last Sunday. (Via Instapundit.) Well, I guess Americans approve of spying on the enemy a lot more than some folks seem to have figured. Or maybe it's just holiday mellowness.

Christmas Eve morning.

[ADDED: Welcome crossword Googlers. The answer is Theodore Roosevelt. [MORE: or Bob Saget.] Please hang out and read more of the Althouse blog. Since you're smart enough to do the Saturday puzzle, you might really like it!]

It's Christmas Eve and Saturday. I get the feeling it will be a slow day in the blogosphere, don't you? It certainly feels slow from here, because my laptop is malfunctioning, and I'm using an old desktop, an iMac, which I remember thinking was so wonderful when I first unpacked it. Now, the curved screen seems insanely bulbous, and I'm hyperconscious of the high-pitched sound it emits. But I wrote the first two months of my blog on this -- with a dial-up connection -- and it was perfectly nice back then.

Yesterday, when I wasn't struggling to think up new ways to nudge my laptop back to life, I was checking my blog to see if I posted on Christmas last year (the blog's first Christmas). It turns out I did. But I was sensitive about the fact that I was doing it: here ("Blogging on Christmas?") and here ("She stops Christmas to blog"). Let's check the Christmas Eve blogging from last year. Ah! It's my favorite Christmas picture of me (and my sister Dell... and that guy):



I should dig up and scan some other Christmas nostalgia from the 1950s. Yeah, I know a couple that might make you laugh.

Anyway, is there anything in the news to blog about? I just paged through the NYT and found nothing that called out to me. Well, the crossword called out. Damn, it's hard today. I mean, even for a Saturday, it's hard -- especially in the southeast corner!

Computer troubles, Martha's "Apprentice" gossip.

Sorry I haven't posted more today. My laptop has been acting up. I've turned the thing off and on about 50 times today trying to get it to work. It's an iBook G4, and the 3 times I got it going, it froze up. All the other times, it would just hang up on a blank blue screen. I've been looking at that blue screen trying to think up new strategies for getting past it for a long part of today. It's not all I did today. I did an NPR interview about Alito over at the WPR studio, and I got some shopping and wrapping done. But generally, it's been frustrating here! (I'm writing this on an old, annoying computer.)

And, yes, I know the NY Post had a gossip piece about Martha's "Apprentice."

A former contestant who was in the green room and overheard the child's remark told PAGE SIX: "Jennifer Koppelman Hutt [Charles' daughter, who works with Alexis] and her little girl were making small talk with the cast before the show. Someone asked the little girl, 'So, who do you think is going to win?' The little girl confidently replied, 'Bethenny is going to win, Martha didn't like Dawna's fashion show.' "

The shocked mother quickly whisked the tot out of the room as word rapidly spread throughout the stunned studio.

The former contestant who was there tells us, "They quickly sequestered the castmates. It was very strange. They put us all in separate rooms. The producer announced to the audience, 'We have last-minutes changes in the script. We want to keep the suspense up to the very last minute.' "

I think the grownups probably got the little girl to say that to create excitement about what was a very dull contest that Dawna was obviously going to win. That is, the girl didn't spill the answer, causing Martha to change the outcome. The girl was used as a device to inject some tension into the situation. It didn't work too well, though apparently some people who were there got jazzed up about it. It did not reach through to the TV audience.

"Everybody says I'm an asshole, and they're right, I am."

Says Kos -- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga -- in a big feature story in Washington Monthly.

Talking with Moulitsas, like reading his blog, is a singularly withering experience. He speaks in twenty-minute chunks, so you don't need to ask questions so much as provision buckets to catch the flood. When I nodded to agree with a point he made, he looked mildly disappointed; his conversation tends to circle back over itself, probing, seeking resistance. Moulitsas is not a naturally commanding presence—he's 5'6, slender, with a high-pitched voice and a rounded face that puts you vaguely in mind of an animated frog....

Moulitsas is touchy, far too self-assured, and easily provoked. But he's more interesting in person than he is on his blog, more thoughtful and funny and even a little bit more capable of self-criticism. He laughs, he makes fun of himself, he says absurd things and then takes them back, and then thinks again and doesn't—he actually enjoys himself. He told me a long story about egging on a blogger named Chris Bowers, who posts at MyDD.com, the same site where Moulitsas got his start. “I keep telling him, Chris, you've got to be an asshole, you're too soft for politics, the only way is to be an asshole, and you know what?” Moulitsas grins triumphantly. “He did. He's a lot tougher now.”

So that's the secret to getting the big traffic numbers in political blogging, then? Be an asshole? What fascinates me here is the revelation that Kos is "more interesting in person than he is on his blog." There's the other Kos blog, the blog that might have been: the funny, quirky, revealing personal blog that is capable of self-doubt, capable of standing outside the political forces it talks about. But doing politics requires focus and self-editing -- on a blog or anywhere else. If you feel an aversion to politics.... well, you should.

"One of those Hollywood fictions that seem to befuddle those who miss the nuance in the words 'inspired by real events.'"

There's a phrase. It's from the NYT review of the film "Munich." Yes, you dare to carp at a prestige film that distorts historical events? You befuddled, unnuanced fool.

"You were a warrior in the war on terrier."

Said by Andrea Mitchell, hosting "Hardball" last night, to her other guest just after tangling with Judge Richard Posner, who was on the show, by telephone, to talk about the Bush administration's warrantless interception of telephone calls. It's quite surprising, by the way, to find a federal judge going on a TV news analysis show to talk about a legal issue. I note that he did not take a position, but tried to explain the arguments.

He had to keep saying things like "I said it's arguable" as Mitchell kept trying to pin him down before moving back to the other guest. Posner, though he was on the phone, was very forceful in denying Mitchell the ability to use the host's standard strategy of capsulizing the guest's position in order to move a two-sided debate forward. Mitchell must have felt the need to be more tolerant toward Posner than to the usual guest, but she obviously needed to give some time to her other guest. She kept a smile on her face as she tried to make the requisite move, but then she said, "You were a warrior in the war on terrier."

Audible Althouse, #27.

Here it is, my first podcast recorded in the daytime, and, more importantly, my first podcast recorded with the new Blue Snowball Microphone. It's 46 minutes. Remember you don't need an iPod to listen. You can stream the podcast right on your computer. Just go over and click that "POD" button! [ADDED: Or just click here.]

Topics: how much I detest the movie "Contact," the extent of the character development in "Annie Hall," whether women -- as in "King Kong" -- are sexually attracted to apes, why folks just can't get used to the notion that we evolved from apes, how Egyptologists argue about whether two men in a 5000 year old painting are gay, what the cowboy from The Village People has to say about "Brokeback Mountain," how rotten the finale to Martha Stewart's "Apprentice" was, how FOXNews has infected our holiday greetings, a proposal to take note of the War on Advent, my place in the Divided Kingdom of Kostria-Wingery, and my chance to become the Conservative Blogress Diva.

"Cold northern reaches," indeed.

I'm just now seeing this. (Via Sundries.) Look more closely. And don't you think this is all the more reason why I need to be your Conservative Blogress Diva?

Conservative Blogress Diva.

GayPatriot is looking to choose the "Conservative Blogress Diva," and I'm one of the nominees. How would a diva say go over there and vote for me? It's not a question of who's the most conservative, you know. It's a question of who would make the best diva. Think about it!

Congratulations!

Yay! You know who you are!

Miss America, nostalgia-style.

Good idea.

[Country Music Television], in partnership with the Miss America Organization, has jettisoned a casual-wear competition that was added in recent years, as well as a multiple-choice civics quiz that had pitted five finalists against one another on a "Jeopardy"-style set pumped with an ominous soundtrack seemingly borrowed from "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."...

[V]iewers will see what CMT intends as a more genteel, glamorous competition...

In place of the stiff blue jeans and halter tops that made some onstage segments last year seem like a debutante's bad idea of casual Friday, CMT will emphasize evening wear, with sashes bearing state names - little seen in recent years - again draped prominently across the contestants' long gowns throughout the night so viewers can better chart their progress. Also returning in January - for the first time since 1974 - will be Miss Congeniality, an honor bestowed on one of the 52 contestants (representing the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands) by her peers.

And instead of reducing the talent competition to a montage of edited highlights of the final 10 contestants engaged in baton-twirling, jazz-dancing and furious classical piano playing - as ABC did in recent years - CMT will present full-length performances of the final five contestants. ...

Though the decline in interest in such pageants parallels the dramatic changes in women's lives and careers in recent decades, [Paul Villadolid, vice president of programming and development at CMT] nonetheless saw relevance. The women in their 20's who compete to become Miss America - nearly all of them college-bound and most from small towns - are not unlike those who form the foundation of the CMT audience.

This is a nice demonstration of the value of cable TV over the big networks.

What does it take to get a restraining order?

Do the judges apply any judgment at all?

Lawyers for David Letterman have gone to court in New Mexico to quash a restraining order obtained by a Santa Fe woman who said he had used code words to indicate he wanted to marry her and train her to be a co-host, The Associated Press reported. The temporary restraining order was granted to Colleen Nestler, who alleged that Mr. Letterman had forced her to go bankrupt and inflicted "mental cruelty" and "sleep deprivation" on her since 1994. She asked that Mr. Letterman, who tapes his "Late Show" in New York, stay at least three yards from her and not "think of me, and release me from his mental harassment and hammering." In a motion filed on Mr. Letterman's behalf, Pat Rogers, an Albuquerque lawyer, wrote, "Celebrities deserve protection of their reputation and legal rights when the occasional fan becomes dangerous or deluded." Saying that the restraining order is without merit, Mr. Letterman's lawyers asked District Court Judge Daniel Sanchez to quash it. A hearing on the request for a permanent restraining order was set for Jan. 12.

Gotta dance.

Guys.

"When this old world starts getting me down..."

"And people are just too much for me to face..." The Drifters sang some pretty words, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, back in simpler times.

I climb way up to the top of the stairs
And all my cares just drift right into space
On the roof, it's peaceful as can be
And there the world below can't bother me
Let me tell you now

When I come home feelin' tired and beat
I go up where the air is fresh and sweet (up on the roof)
I get away from the hustling crowd
And all that rat-race noise down in the street (up on the roof)
On the roof, the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so
Let's go up on the roof (up on the roof)

At night the stars put on a show for free
And, darling, you can share it all with me

I keep a-tellin' you

Right smack dab in the middle of town
I've found a paradise that's trouble proof (up on the roof)
And if this world starts getting you down
There's room enough for two
Up on the roof (up on the roof)
Up on the roo-oo-oof (up on the roof)
Oh, come on, baby (up on the roof)
Oh, come on, honey (up on the roof)

Everything is all right (up on the roof)

Oh no, it's not. These days:

A man and woman who shared an intimate moment on a secluded, dark rooftop one August night last year have learned that they were secretly watched, an intrusion made possible by increased police surveillance of protest rallies and other events and also by advanced technology intended to fight terrorists.

That night, police officers tracked bicycle riders moving through the streets of the Lower East Side from a custom-built, $9.8 million helicopter equipped with optical equipment able to display a license plate 1,000 feet away.

With the night vision of the helicopter's camera, and permission to make videotapes, an officer also recorded nearly four minutes of the couple on the terrace of a Second Avenue penthouse.

"When you watch the tape, it makes you feel kind of ill," said Jeffrey Rosner, 51, one of the two people. "I had no idea they were filming me - who would ever have an idea like that?"....

High above Second Avenue, they seemed to be shielded from view by a wall of shrubs and the nearly total darkness. The police camera, however, included special thermal-imaging equipment that yielded distinct, if ghostly, images.

And won't it happen, soon enough, that the thermal-imaging will allow them to shoot an image through the roof? Or are they already doing that? Maybe you ought to move the bed down to the first floor.

IN THE COMMENTS: I'm told this story has been in the news before and reminded that the bigger story is the one that accompanies it: "New York Police Covertly Join In at Protest Rallies." Well, you know, I blog about what catches my eye as I flip through the day's NYT, so this choice of topic says something embarrassing about me, I suppose.

The Village People cowboy has his say about "Brokeback Mountain."

Well, of course, "Brokeback Mountain" means it's time for Randy Jones, the cowboy from The Village People to resurface and do some press. Who better to inform us about whether or not gay cowboys are just a Hollywood concoction?

“There they were, a couple of men, alone together in isolated frontier country, for weeks or sometimes months at a time...

“The thought must have passed through their minds, even if they didn’t act on it, because men are sexy animals. If that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be so much homosexual sex in prison.”...

Mr Jones ... said that Brokeback Mountain was encouraging “red [Republican] state” gays to come out of the closet. He added that the advice he gave to the actors Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, when they questioned him about the love scenes, was to “keep their hats and boots on in bed. The boots are for traction.”

It sounds as though he knows a tad more what he's talking about than Annie Proulx, the author of the New Yorker short story the movie is based on. (Note to Althouse critics: I read the short story!)

I see the NYT "boldface" reporter talked to Jones a few days ago (TimesSelect link):

This film is described as trail-blazing and pioneering in its depiction of gay cowboys. Does that make you feel underappreciated? we asked.

''I'm a little ----.'' Whoa there, partner. Let's just say miffed.

''They're not even cowboys,'' Mr. Jones said. ''They're sheep herders. If you can't tell the difference between sheep and cows, how can you tell the difference between men and women?''

A good question. But in fairness, we asked him about his own qualifications. For one, he is happily married to WILL GREGA, a recording artist. For another, he said he grew up working in the tobacco fields of North Carolina. Thus, our next question. They wear chaps in the tobacco fields?

''Jeans,'' he said. ''The chaps I left to THE BIKER DUDE.''

Ah. What historical figures do you consider your major influences?

''I was raised on all those 50's Warner Brothers cowboy shows. 'Sugarfoot.' 'Maverick.' 'Cheyenne' with CLINT WALKER. It seems like every week they had his shirt ripped off, and he was either tied to something or another cowboy.''

So who, of HEATH LEDGER or JAKE GYLLENHAAL, best personifies the gay cowboy? Mr. Jones admitted he had not in fact seen the movie yet. But.

''I've got some pictures I've pulled off line of Heath Ledger.''

Yeah, we've heard about those.

Mr. Jones has just finished his role as GOD in ''Sodom: The Musical'' and is moving on to ''I Wanna Be Rosie,'' at La MaMa E.T.C.

''I play all of the men in ROSEMARY CLOONEY's life. Her father, her uncle, her nephew GEORGE CLOONEY, her psychiatrist, JOSÉ FERRER, BING CROSBY, NELSON RIDDLE.''

Mr. Jones also has a film coming out next spring about a country club that is built over the graves of Civil War soldiers, whose spirits are angered when the grounds crew uses extra-strength fertilizer. It is called ''Lawn of the Dead.''

Okay, I never really paid any attention to him before, but I've got to say, I love Randy Jones. He sounds really smart and funny and has an excellent attitude!

"Sodom: The Musical"? Here's a review (from the Village Voice):

Randy Jones ... plays God as a beleaguered office manager, Brian Munn's Abraham, his sycophantic subordinate—or, as he dubs himself in one interminable tune, "God's Li'l Bitch." The white-tracksuit-clad God doesn't want his Sodomites being such sodomites—even though they're cast quite clearly in his own image—and he will smite the land unless Abraham comes up with one good man there.

What follows are songs about sins: The writing team of Kevin Laub and Adam Cohen follows a formula of defining each of the Ten Commandments Greek chorus–style, then demonstrating with a peppy tune how it's violated. Lyricist Laub has his moments, celebrating a sexual paradise where penicillin is doled out "like government cheese," but Cohen's score, trying too hard to satisfy the Broadway musical idiom, is uninspired. Sodom fails the karaoke test: You will never hear these tunes at Pieces or the Duplex.

And here's an interview with Annie Proulx, in which she evades questions about how she got the idea for the shepherds-in-love story.

QUESTION THAT OCCURS TO ME ON REREADING: But what's the hat for?