Capturing my nostalgic yearnings in 1000 pages or less...

All this fuss over the new Clinton memoir, My Life, is very amusing. Critics of both books and of The Clintons have been trashing the over 900-page tome this past week and without having read the book yet some of the comments seem wildly pointless. The New York Times reviewed the book last Sunday and (surprise surprise!) panned it at every turn. What else would one expect from a paper that spent the last ten years treating Clinton with the sort of systematic hatred often found still spewing from the right-wing media pundits gaping maws. Times book reviewer and partisan hack Michiko Kakutani wrote "compared to the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, arguably the most richly satisfying autobiography by an American president, My Life has little of that classic's unsparing candor or historical perspective."

God forbid The Times acknowledge Bill Clinton might have written a book as good as President Grant. What is so wrong with allowing an intelligent man to write intelligently? I can't wait to read this book, myself. I'm very nostalgic for the Clinton era. Last year I read The Clinton Wars, and that was a huge dense book that everyone loved. Some people find Clinton's new book to be "eye-crossingly boring," but I call it my summer reading. I've found over the past few years that I love a good thick memoir about interesting people and Bill Clinton is as interesting as they come. If nothing else, this book promises to be smart. Unlike some recent presidents, I can actually listen to President Clinton endlessly talk about mundane facets of policy. That may not entirely be fair since our current president chooses not to discuss policy and never seems to consider mundane facets of anything.

But all of this hullabaloo over the Clinton book makes me wonder if Bush will ever consider "telling his side of the story." The President who can't read or pronounce multi-syllabic words trying to write a memoir could be the only good thing to come out of this administrations reign of terror. Good as in terribly amusing to me. Filled with macho swaggering and inane inconsistencies, the book itself would be infuriating if not incomprehensible, but the funny is in the process. Picture George W. pouring over his manuscript late into the night in his library or study. That's comedy! Come next January he's going to make one hilarious ex-president.

8 Mile?!?!?! My iPod could make a more complete list than this...

The American Film Institute has revealed yet another in its series of arbitrary, yet frustrating top 100 lists. This time around they have chosen the Top 100 Movie Songs.

Leading the list is "Over the Rainbow" sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. No problem there. I think it's got to be the most iconic scene of someone singing in a movie ever. Take a look at the rest of the list. Of course they list many of the obvious, but there are many that were just left out in favor of crap like "Lose Yourself" from 8 Mile (#93) just so they can say they included a diverse array of musical tastes.

To determine this list they look at a few factors. To be eligible a movie must be an American feature length narrative fiction film in English. They then look at very precise mathematical factors such as tone, mood, characterization, plot advancement, cultural resonance, and legacy. I would love to meet the scientists who spend their days coming up with this chemical formula. I imagine many dark-rimmed glasses and white lab coats dipping DVD's and VHS cassettes into brilliant royal blue mixtures and waiting for the chemical reactions to reveal the proper color of cultural resonance (red perhaps?).

"Aha! If you look here, this crimson color with the mottled neon yellow clearly shows that 'Wind Beneath My Wings' illuminates the movie's overall themes better than 'Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah'" (#44 and #47 respectively).

Personally I think their science is more flawed than the Bush administration's. It's the only way one can account for the absence of just about anything from Gypsy. For every "I Will Always Love You," (#65) they seem to include a "Theme from Arthur" (#79).

There are many songs I think should have been included, such as "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from Evita or The Breakfast Club's "Don't You (Forget About Me)." No song has ever been as simultaneously campy and terrifying as "I'm Writing A Letter To Daddy" when Bette Davis sang it in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. My life would not be the same today if not for the songs in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. And although it has no lyrics, the least they should have done was throw an honorable mention to the theme from Jaws. By far the worst travesty on this list though is the exclusion of any song from The Wiz. I'm sure everyone can find fault with the list. And invite you all do to so. Cause it's fun to know better than people. Especially absurd music scientists.

Oh Canada, our home and native land...

Canada has given us many delights throughout time. Mounties. Jim Carey. Hockey. A freaky kind of bacon. Free trade. And of course, Degrassi High.

This past weekend I went home for a family barbecue and Father's Day and in the midst of a very enjoyable time I developed a bit if an obsession with a new version of this show. Late Saturday night, I found myself on the living room couch unable to sleep. Luckily my parents recently purchased a 50" television that takes up most of the room- so much in fact it's all I can do not to climb into the picture. Growing up, my parents would never let me sit too close to the screen, but now that the screen is too close even if I am watching from the third floor, it only confirms my suspicions that their concern for my underdeveloped eyesight was actually concern for their unobscured line-of-sight.

Like all Americans in the grip of insomnia, I turned on what can only accurately referred to as the television appliance and began to flip. I watched some very unfunny Saturday Night Live and forced myself not to purchase fat lady clothes from Denim and Co. featured on QVC (they make everything seems so tempting). Finally I came across The-N, a cable channel for young teenagers and their thoughts and opinions. The reason I stopped? Degrassi: The Next Generation.

When I was growing up I from time to time I would watch Degrassi Junior High and later Degrassi High, a Canadian produced soap opera set in a Toronto school system, on PBS. Now a whole new generation of students are dating and partying at Degrassi and I found myself just as engrossed as ever. A little smarter and prettier, these kids are definitely of a different generation. I watched as Emma and her step-father dealt with his cancer, and her boyfriend Sean fell in with "the wrong crowd." I sat riveted as Marco was gay-bashed in the park and his friend Spinner refused to deal with the revelation about his sexuality. Meanwhile they all formed a garage band!

It was captivating. It was nostalgic. It was a FOUR HOUR MARATHON. And I watched it all, though I missed the extremely rough production values of the original series. I blamed my possesion on the sleep deprivation and the complete absence of any intelligent entertainment at that hour. But in the days since, I have had this nagging need to find out if Emma and Sean could pull through or if Spin and Marco could repair their broken friendship. I suppose watching four hours straight of anything would leave an impression, but I've been searching websites today trying to find out what happens to these characters. It would seem that there are about 20 some-odd characters on this show so their stories don't progress as fast as one would like. Normally I would keep this newfound teenybopper obsession to myself, but this show's Canadian, so I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it's okay for a 23 year old man to be checking out the latest "Saved by Dawson's 90210" copycat now and then. We all have our guilty pleasures. I try to embrace mine as much as possible, since being Catholic, I have enough guilt in my life. Now when do this show come out on Dvd?

Come quick, I've been mired in quag...

In less than ten days, The U.S. is to turn over control Iraq to the Iraqi people in keeping with the promised deadline. And that remains the only promise about this failed occupation that they have been able to fulfill. In an excellent article article (the first of three) in Sunday's Washington Post, many of the missed opportunities and failures of the "reconstruction effort" were outlined and discussed. Let's list some of the major failures:

-The Iraqi army is one-third the size U.S. officials promised it would be by now.

-Seventy percent of police officers have not received training.

-In the face of violence, many soldiers and policemen refused to perform their duties because U.S. forces had failed to equip them, designate competent leaders and win trust among the ranks.

-Only 15,000 Iraqis are working on projects funded to employ 250,000 by this month. 80% of these funds have yet to be spent still.

-Most homes only have about 9 hours of electricity a day, despite promises to increase the energy output.

-When Paul Bremer, U.S. administrator in Iraq steps down on June 30th, he will leave the Iraqis with an interim constitution, something he repeatedly promised not to do.

-Violent attacks against troops and civilians are up to about 40 per day.

This just scratches the surface! And when asked about his accomplishments in Iraq, Mr. Bremer said his greatest success was the tax cut he gave to Iraqis. What is wrong with these people! Despite increasing knowledge that tax cuts do not work for anyone but the very wealthy in this country, do they really expect them to do much good in a place teetering on the edge of complete anarchy? Is this the only thing this administration knows how to do? Did we invade Iraq to liberate the people from the crushing weight of their tax burden?

So many questions. So little patience.