Surprisingly risqué comedy material for Laura Bush.

Laura Bush took over for her husband doing the comedy at the White House Correspondents Dinner tonight. I was surprised by how risqué it was. She talked about her frustration that Bush goes to bed early, while she stays up and watches "Desperate Housewives." She portrayed herself going out to Chippendale's with Lynne Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and running into Justices O'Connor and Ginsburg there. And she described Bush's ineptitude in his early days of ranching with the old joke that he "tried to milk a horse ... and it was a male horse." So, thanks, Laura, for leaving us with that picture of George with a horse's penis in his hand!

But I don't have a problem with this because I'm tired of the recent upsurge of social conservatism. Was Laura's routine a sign that we're entering a libertarian conservative phase? I hope so. And is it too much to imagine that the appearance of those two Roe-upholding Justices in that Chippendale's scenario is Laura's way of assuring us that Bush is not planning to nominate a social conservative Justice to the Supreme Court?

UPDATE: Ambivablog connects Laura's routine to Frank Rich's column about "South Park Conservatives." There's also some discussion along these lines in the comments. And I'll just say that horse joke reminded me of this "South Park" episode. Oh, and that I also thought that Frank Rich column was too dull to talk about. Obviously, there are social conservatives and libertarian conservatives. Who thought "South Park" was promoting socially conservative ideas? No one who likes "South Park" could have been surprised by the way it treated the Terri Schiavo case (in the "Best Friends Forever" episode). Rich acts like Republicans were taken by surprise after thinking "South Park" was on their side. What a straw man!

You know you've been working on the computer too long...

When the mouse starts to resemble Angelina Jolie.

The racial side of the filibuster controversy.

Lawprof Steven Calabresi has this piece in the new Weekly Standard:

Why are Senate Democrats so afraid of conservative judicial nominees who are African Americans, Hispanics, Catholics, and women? Because these Clarence Thomas nominees threaten to split the Democratic base by aligning conservative Republicans with conservative voices in the minority community and appealing to suburban women. The Democrats need Bush to nominate conservatives to the Supreme Court whom they can caricature and vilify, and it is much harder for them to do that if Bush nominates the judicial equivalent of a Condi Rice rather than a John Ashcroft.

Conservative African-American, Hispanic, Catholic, and female judicial candidates also drive the left-wing legal groups crazy because they expose those groups as not really speaking for minorities or women. They thus undermine the moral legitimacy of those groups and drive a wedge between the left-wing leadership of those groups and the members they falsely claim to represent.

Take Janice Rogers Brown, who won reelection to her state supreme court seat with a stunning 76 percent of the vote in one of the bluest of the blue states, California. Or take Priscilla Owen, who won reelection to the Texas Supreme Court with a staggering 84 percent of the vote in Texas. It is Brown and Owen who represent mainstream opinion in this country--not the Senate Democrats who have been using the filibuster to block their confirmation to the federal bench. If Brown or Owen were nominated to the Supreme Court, the record suggests she would win the ensuing national contest for hearts and minds. Best of all for conservatives, Senate Democrats would be forced by their left-wing interest groups to go down fighting these popular minority and female nominees. At a bare minimum, Republican Senate candidates would acquire a great issue for 2006.

Thus the driving force behind the Democrats' filibuster of conservative minorities and women is political--driven by a desire to protect the party's advantage with minority and women voters and cater to left-wing interest groups. Democrats are also driven in part by their odd belief that "real" African Americans and Hispanics and women cannot be conservative.

These are strong charges. The other side of this coin is that Bush may nominate minorities precisely to create this dissonance for the Democrats. There is no end to the complexity of the two parties' use of race as they fight for power. It's a shame, but it's reality, and we should be ready to look at all sides of it. Calabresi is participating in the struggle from one side. He has some good points, of course, but he's not standing back and trying to describe the whole complex struggle.

Songs transformed with the sex of the singer.

What songs well-known as girl songs would take on intriguing meaning sung by a guy? Tori Amos comes up with a list of 20 songs, but I find her list uninspiring. Do you have any better ideas?

There's also the reverse: what boy songs could be transformed if sung by a female? The obvious actual example of this is Aretha Franklin singing Otis Redding's "Respect."

In Redding's reading, a brawny march powered by Booker T. and the MG's and the Memphis Horns, he called for equal favor with volcanic force. Franklin wasn't asking for anything. She sang from higher ground: a woman calling an end to the exhaustion and sacrifice of a raw deal with scorching sexual authority. In short, if you want some, you will earn it.

"For Otis, respect had the traditional connotation, the more abstract meaning of esteem," Franklin's producer, Jerry Wexler, said in his autobiography, Rhythm and the Blues: A Life in American Music. "The fervor in Aretha's voice demanded that respect; and more respect also involved sexual attention of the highest order."

The trouble with a man singing that song is that it's a bit ugly: I make the money, so you owe me. It's the conventional arrangement. The lyrics are a bit awkward in the female re-sing. Why was Aretha giving this guy "all my money"? But we ignored that. It was the remnant of the Otis version. She sang through that and pulled out the better, female meaning through sheer force.

UPDATE: The classic example of a man singing a woman's song is Frank Sinatra singing Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me." He's forced to sacrifice the most beautiful couplet -- "Although he may not be the man some/girls think of as handsome" -- but singing words that are an entirely conventional woman's dream, Sinatra lets us see a shocking, haunting vulnerability.

"Too immature" to decide to have an abortion?

A state judge is preventing a 13-year-old girl from having an abortion, the theory being that she is "too immature" to make her own decision. Her immaturity, of course, also makes it especially burdensome for her to go through pregnancy and childbirth. But before getting too upset at the judge, consider this:

Florida's department of children and families intervened and took the matter to court, arguing the teenager, who is under the care of the state, is too young and immature to make an informed medical decision. Judge Ronald Alvarez in Palm Beach accepted that argument and has granted a temporary injunction and psychological evaluation, which effectively blocks her from terminating the pregnancy.

The girl may be afraid, pressured by others, without resources, unaware of options. Even if you think it is obvious that she had already made the best choice in seeking an abortion, the state is only intervening to impose counseling and advice and is only temporarily preventing the abortion.

But it's quite clear that "too immature" can't be the final call. What if she were 9? Immaturity may be a reason not to leave you to your own devices, but those who intervene cannot simply impose their choice on you. They must be legitimately helping you make a well-balanced, reasoned choice.

Virtual high school.

I'm interested in virtual high schools, as I wrote here. And now, I see there's this virtual high school blog.

The runaway bride.

"14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen"! Maybe it's not such a great idea to have a super-huge wedding.

On the other hand, if the super-huge wedding is freaking you out -- and when we can see the whites of your eyes above your irises, you are freaked out -- setting off a nationwide search, with family members crying on television, is not such a great idea either.

I just watched last night's Nancy Grace show -- which predates the surfacing of the runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks -- and found something really quite creepy about the whole wow-we've-got-another-Scott-and-Laci vibe.

And the poor groom-to-be! He had to know everyone already had him pegged as the murderer. Everyone on TV was into analyzing why he would take a private lie detector test, but wanted special conditions before he'd take the police test. He wanted it videotaped, and the police refused. Think how he felt! They were closing in on an innocent man, and his efforts to protect himself were just more reason to speculate he was guilty.

"That's not what a guilty man does."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports a victory for the Wisconsin Innocence Project of the University of Wisconsin Law School:

The first jury had been told that tests on DNA from cigarette butts at the murder scene did not match Zimmerman. But the appeals court said Zimmerman's attorney also should have introduced evidence of many other DNA tests - on hairs from Thompson's pants and sweater, as well as scrapings from her fingernails - that also did not match Zimmerman.

The retrial was held in Juneau in Dodge County because of publicity in Eau Claire surrounding the first trial. Before the jury returned for duty Friday, Eau Claire County District Attorney Richard White announced that he was dropping the charges....

Zimmerman's lead attorney in the retrial, Keith Belzer of La Crosse, said much of the testimony in the first trial was incriminating because it was incomplete. He said that more thorough questioning of witnesses in the retrial, including those commenting on the mass of physical evidence that did not implicate Zimmerman, made it clear that Zimmerman could not have committed the crime.

Belzer said Zimmerman was too exhausted to give an interview, but [Innocence Project co-director Keith] Findley, who assisted Belzer in the retrial, said the former Augusta cop initially was upset to learn that the prosecutor was dropping the charges. "No, I don't want him to do that. I want the jury to find me not guilty," he quoted Zimmerman as saying.

Findley also said Zimmerman had refused a plea bargain that was offered several months before the retrial and again during the retrial. He said Zimmerman could have been convicted of a reduced charge of reckless homicide and been given probation, but refused.

"That's not what a guilty man does," Findley said.

What would Robin Hood do?

John Tierney has an op-ed today about Bush's plan to reshape Social Security to give the greatest benefit to the poor:

[Democrats] tried yesterday to portray him as just another cruel, rich Republican for suggesting any cuts in future benefits, but that's not what the prime-time audience saw on Thursday night. By proposing to shore up the system while protecting low-income workers, Mr. Bush raised a supremely awkward question for Democrats: which party really cares about the poor?...

Democrats like to portray Mr. Bush as King George or Marie Antoinette. But on Thursday night, when he promised to improve benefits for the poor while limiting them for everyone else, he sounded more like Robin Hood, especially when he rhapsodized about poor people getting a chance to build up assets that they could pass along to their children.

It was the kind of talk you might expect to hear from a Democrat, except that Democrats don't talk about much these days except the glories of the New Deal.

Mr. Tierney aren't you forgetting something? That other way Democrats like to portray Bush? "He sounded more like Robin Hood"? Why not say he sounded more like Jesus? It seems to me Democrats also love to say that Bush is too much of a deep-believing Christian, but the usual charge slips out of their heads altogether when Christian belief points toward doing things they approve of:

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."

Beware of the man with a cause, a guitar, and a belief in his own way with words.

Michael Newdow -- the man who opposed "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance -- what's he up to these days? Look out, he's got a guitar!

Newdow told the audience that he is overwhelmed by the abundance of words beginning with the letter C that are used to describe the United States' history.

"You have the Colonial era, the Continental Congresses, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention," Newdow said. "It's really quite confusing. Just think about who discovered this place: Christopher Columbus, who comes to this new continent where communities congregate and coalesce into colonies such as Connecticut and the Carolinas.'

He continued to relay the events from colonization to the creation of the Constitution through alliteration.

Aside from being an accomplished orator, Newdow is also a singer-songwriter. He presented two of his songs during the lecture.

The first was a tune about the inaugural use of "So help me God," and the other was a melody about the Ten Commandments rock that was placed in the Alabama judicial building several years ago.

Newdow's next project is challenging the placement of "In God We Trust" upon American currency.

"I'm an atheist," he said. "I don't believe in God, so why does my money have to say that?"

I'm someone who can't stand media hounds, so why does my internet have to have a picture of him with a guitar on it?

Most laughs ever received by a right-leaning guest on "The Daily Show."

I'd say it was Christina Hoff Sommers, this past Wednesday, promoting her book about how the self-esteem movement in schools has gone too far. The tales she had to tell -- about "Circle of Friends" replacing tag and the demand that the red correction pen give way to lavender -- really connected with the audience, who seemed quite eager to receive this info. They were prepped, I think, by some combination of their own school experiences and "South Park." And Stewart did not make it easy for her. His approach was to challenge whether her little anecdotes represented anything other than some highly affluent enclaves. Every time he made this move, she shot out some little thing -- "The Girl Scouts have an anti-stress badge" -- that made the audience burst into spontaneous laughter. And you know it would not be their normal thing to give a warm welcome to a right-ish guest.

Regrettably, the Sommers interview is not included on the best interviews page at the "Daily Show" site. (You can, however, see the Dennis Miller interview. He, too, did well. I felt bad for him when he expressed his envy of the "Daily Show's" audience, which was, apparently, visibly way hipper than the crowd he's stuck with out in California.)

Pretty/ugly street.

Such a pretty street. Look how the cherry blossoms lean out next to the old brick building, as a solitary woman makes a private call:



There's even a charming local cooperative bookstore on this street. Or maybe not so charming. Here's what its side wall looks like:



A closer look:



(Click on the image for an even closer, much more detailed shot. The image, which I find offensive, is actually very well drawn.)

Isn't this the Rosie O'Donnell movie you've been waiting for?

Virginia Heffernan writes:

[L]ike Tom Hanks's Forrest Gump in "Forrest Gump" and Sean Penn's Sam in "I Am Sam" and Juliette Lewis's Carla in "The Other Sister," Beth is mostly a constellation of misfit affectations - funny clothes, bipolar outbursts, a forced, garbled voice - and goofy physicality. Beth seems to be wrapped in a loose, superfluous layer of flesh, a symptom of some kind of metabolic disorder (she also gobbles sweets). As a character, she doesn't make sense: she's socially awkward, but not consistently disabled. She's less poignant or tragic than merely clamorous and bothersome.

But if she bugs you, it's your problem. This underhanded movie makes Ms. O'Donnell into an appalling cartoon only to pretend innocence - or, no, moral superiority - when the viewer is appalled. Is Beth's voice deafening on your television set? Is her lumpy form in a Tweety Bird T-shirt depressing? Is her nascent sexuality hard to contemplate? You must have no heart. And you will have to come around to her innocent wonders.

Maybe we can finally draw the line and say if it's just an actor playing developmentally disabled -- a well-known Oscar/Emmy-begging strategy -- we may -- we must! -- level our harshest judgment.

What happened to "The Apprentice"?

After watching all of the first two seasons of "The Apprentice," I abandoned this season somewhere in the middle, though I did occasionally watch a scene I'd heard was especially good. Last night, I watched the whole show. At this point, they were down to the last four contestants, all of whom seemed haplessly bad for any number of reasons. Two of them, stuck working together, could barely hide their contempt for each other. Of the other two, one was entirely lame and the other had insanely bad judgment -- she just had to go to Staten Island in search of a BeDazzler when the task was to sell a limited edition of artist-designed T-shirts. Maybe it makes for a better reality show to have a bunch of bumbling incompetents. Trump keeps saying these people beat out a million applicants, but he never really admits what characteristics he was looking for.

Two things Matt Drudge thinks people make fun of him for caring about.

1. Human cloning.

2. Surveillance cameras everywhere.

He's on C-Span with Brian Lamb right now. At one point, we see him check his traffic statistics and he smiles and glows with pleasure as he swivels the Sony Vaio laptop over for Lamb to see.

Blogging, not slogging.

"Movies encourage passive titillation; videogames encourage active involvement, and often present consequences as well."

True?

Now, substitute "journalism" for "movies" and "blogging" for "videogames." That seems true to me. I mean, other than that "titilliation" makes reading the newspaper sound like more fun than it is.

Personally, I've nearly entirely stopped watching movies, though a few years ago, I went out to the movies three times a week, and I watched many movies at home. My old weekly total is more like my annual total, and my avoidance is almost entirely a result of enhanced awareness and consequent dislike of the passivity of sitting, trapped in the theater for two hours. I don't play videogames, but for a viewing experience, I'd rather watch something on TV that I can blog. In that sense, for me, "American Idol" or a political debate is like a videogame. I have an active role, through writing. As for the newspaper, I can hardly imagine just sitting and reading it through. It's so much more entrancing to read to write.

Blogging has transformed the way I read. Before blogging, I was slogging -- reading, frustrated by the slowness of my own reading. Now, my old vice is a virtue. That draggy slogging from sentence to sentence was the pull of my own thoughts, which are liberated by blogging. In blogging, you focus on the little phrases that hang you up. What used to slow me down is now a portal into my own writing -- the active, not the passive engagement with words.