The Sons of the Father

Watching Chris Matthews on Hardball the other night and he has neo-con "war-nik" Frank Gaffney on, to debate Dick Cheney's recent comments on Obama with President Reagan's son Ron Reagan.

It's pretty much to be expected in these so-called dialogues between representatives of the "Left" and the "Right" that an argument will shortly ensue. But this one was a bit beyond the pale even for politijunkies like me. At the end of a pretty heated exchange, Gaffney tells Ron Reagan that his father would be ashamed of him. Now you know I'm pro peace & dialogue and such...but I would have smacked the metaphorical taste out of the old coot's mouth right then. Check it out: How crass must you be to drag a man's dead daddy into the fray. All politics aside I'm guessing President Reagan loved his son as much as any father, and knowing Reagan's own neo-conservo-iconoclastic reputation (yes I made that word up), was probably proud of him for having the guts to "go his own way". You can peep the full exchange here. D.N.A

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The Invention of Lying

Hello o' blogolicious ones. Forgive the long absence but I've been busy HyperTweeting away on a couple of other sites. A certain J Gramling has been sweating me about doing real blogging so fiiine. I am dusting off the old digital opinionator and will be sharing some thoughts on life, the universe et cetera. For the first destination in this literary excursion I'd like to talk cinema. Last week I went w/ a particularly excellent friend to see "The Invention of Lying". I went because it stars Ricky Gervais, the creator of the original British version of "The Office" and because Jennifer Garner made it sound super cool on Leno a few weeks ago. Mind you I had very little idea what it was about. I thought it was about a world where people have not developed the ability to lie, and all of a sudden one guy does. Turns out I was correct. Kudos to the people who made the trailer: Anyway the movie was great! There were a few elements of it that were a bit obvious (I saw the pizza box tablets coming a mile away), but it was still a sweet and heartfelt take on aspects of our human identities that we largely take for granted. The concepts of film, religion & advertising are particularly interesting in a world where people are only capable of saying what truly "is", with little to no room for interpretation. Dating is in a class all it's own (after seeing this flick, I'd like to give a major "thanks" to all the women who have lied to me over the years). Ultimately I loved the film because the chubby, middle-aged White guy makes out well in the end, and I can relate to that. I also dug the prism the film puts on the whole idea of creativity and it's impact on so many aspects of our lives. In some ways the truth becomes a canvass on which we paint our own interpretations of the world around us. When in doubt, let sleeping dogs lie on pizza boxes. D.N.A

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