a Prescott Bush interview

I posted this at roughly 70% of the standard youtube size to improve the so-so image resolution, but if you want the rest or the "full-size", it's here( part one), and part 2 is here.

Both are via a channel called "BBC propaganda news", which, presumably, is not related to the BBC. As most of you already know, Prescott Bush was a US senator and the current president's grandfather.

This, n' that, etc

I was excited by the doings of "Blogroll Amnesty Day," and enjoyed poking around and finding sundry similarly small blogs that struck me as interesting.
I've added (and been added by),
Rotus,
Rob Singleton,
Jon Swift
Skippy
Art of Peace

In addition, I asked Barbara O'Brien of th' Mahablog to add me, even though she was already on my blogroll and she did, which was exceedingly nice, especially as she's kind of a bighshot, like Skippy and Jon Swift. And I've corrected my previous error in not linking to Josh Buermann of Flagrancy to Reason.

There are a few I have missed that I've been meaning to add, which I will shortly.

Incidentally, I left a comment at Rotus asking him(?) if he was aware of the defunct US kit car company by the same name that used to manufacture a Lotus 7 replica in the 1980s, designed to take Toyota or Mazda mechanicals(hence the slightly impolitic pun of "rotus", suggesting the stereotypic Japanese person's pronunciation.). I think they were based in Maryland. Caterham Cars in the UK makes a pricey but officially licensed replica, and lots of other companies in the US and UK and elsewhere still make unauthorized knockoffs.

Technically the Rotus was a knockoff of the Lotus Super Seven that replaced the original 7, but I won't burden you with too much auto pedantry, just refer you to the links below should you be curious. Also, pictured below is Patrick McGoohan in KAR 120C, the most famous Lotus 7 ever-- which was actually made by Lotus, and featured in The Prisoner.

Wikipedia's Lotus Seven article,

BBC on the 50th anniversary of the Lotus 7


photos:Rotus Cars, BBC

Marta discusses TV journalism

Here Marta Costello discusses some of her experiences working as a TV journalist-- it's very enlightening.

Meanwhile, I'm going to be gone for a few days, but I'll be back next week. Maybe I'll have a mysterious guest(no, not Marta.)in the interim...

Why I don't like "BSG"

left: c. 1956 Shelter, courtesy 3wheelers.com, right: James Callis, freaking out in an episode of Battlestar Galactica, courtesy the SciFi channel. And don't tell me to say it's James Callis's character who's freaking out. I know it's his character, for Pete's sake. But isn't is wearisome to always say, "James Callis's character, who is the only one who can see Tricia Helfer's character, blah blah blah..." Well, isn't it? Do you know how monotonous it is when people do that? I could go on, but this is only a caption... Yes, I'm fond of elipses. If you don't like elipses, frag off, as the characters on BSG might say...


1.There's something about the show, something a little hard to define-- whether it's the dialogue, or the acting, or the pacing-- that tells me the people doing it are constantly preoccupied with the darkness and supposed significance of the whole endeavor, like it's Alain Resnais in space or something. If anything, their hi-falutin' portentousness actually makes me miss Lorne Greene.

2. That guy with the British accent, lovesick over the tall outer-space chick only he can see. The actor may well a likeable person, and capable of real acting and range and all that, but I only know him on this show, and here all he ever does is mope about with that look of perpetual consternation. It's really tiresome.

2b. On the other hand, if they had an episode in which he was accidentally sucked out an airlock or something and we saw him drift out into space and explode, maybe I'd start watching. And they could even bring him back as his (non-moping) Evil Twin, so that the actor could keep up his condo payments. That would be ok with me too.

a Pew poll, more on Gravel, etc

to people(like me) who find in-depth, meaningful polling interesting, this Pew Center poll is fascinating. It mainly concerns perceptions of ideological identity of various political figures, as well as 2008 "electability." It discomfits me a bit that fairly large numbers of people regard Hillary as "an inspiring leader", but it puzzles the hell out of me that majorities on both the left and the right think she's a liberal.(!?!) She voted for the Patriot Act, supported the war in 2002 and has never conceded she was wrong to do so, has hinted that she wants to keep military bases in Iraq, and came out in favor of an anti-flag burning amendment. What would disqualify her as a liberal in voters' eyes? Favoring a return to segregation?(via kevin drum)

I've looked for a poll of democrats' response to the South Carolina debate, but I haven't seen anything.(I find myself wondering if this is reflective of a big media reluctance to suggest that Mike Gravel might have gained any traction, in much the same way that we hardly ever see polls regarding Americans' views of war with Iran-- possibly because we don't favor it strongly enough.)

However, Mike Gravel sent a bulletin to his myspace friends saying he's back in the June CNN debate in New Hampshire that he was initially bumped from. Also, he's appearing on the Colbert Report tomorrow, May 2nd(via Jack Wood).