THIS, THAT, AND THE OTHER. . .
(11/9/05)

THIS: Schwarzenegger during the voting: "Why would I listen to losers? I mean, let's be honest. I mean, do you think that this is the same thing as like -- let me just make it simple to you. They have lost every single ballot in the Bay Area. Everything. The big spenders wanted to go with increased taxes, many different taxes and fees and all kinds of things."

THAT: He's obviously been working with Bush's speech coach.

THE OTHER: "Why should I listen to losers?" California voters seem to have asked themselves the same question.

THIS: The IRS warns All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA. that it could lose its tax-exempt status because of an anti-war sermon delivered two days before the 2004 presidential election.

THAT: "You cannot serve both God and money." Matthew 6:24

THE OTHER: Guess the IRS doesn’t know about D. James Kennedy. He claims to serve God, and sure makes a hell of a lot of money.

THIS: Cindy Sheehan stands side by side with Venezuelan President Hugh Chavez at an anti-Bush rally in Argentina---news reports.

THAT: Cindy Sheehan never traveled to Argentina., much less stood side-by-side with Chavez---news reports.

THE OTHER: Cindy Sheehan to guest host “Live with Regis and Kelly.”

THIS: D. James Kennedy, by the way, is a televangelist who hosts “The Coral Ridge Hour” from (where else?) Florida. It airs on approximately 550 stations, four cable networks, and to 165 nations on the Armed Forces Network, and is available to 81 percent of the nation's television homes. Exclamation mark.

THAT: D. James Kennedy’s sermons regularly and flagrantly attack “liberal” policies. The second half of the weekly “Coral Ridge Hour” is heavily political, typified by vicious propaganda attacking the ACLU, shilling for no separation between church and state, etc.

THE OTHER: Gee, there sure is a lot more tax money for the IRS in D. James Kennedy’s church than there is in a little church in Pasadena, isn’t there. . .

THIS: In L.A., in the San Fernando Valley, they tried to add rapid transit on the cheap with a dedicated bus lane, the “Orange Line.” The buses cracked up several times in their first week, owing to screaming through blind intersections at 50 mph.

THAT: No one thought to put up crossing gates at major intersections. After all, they were buses, not trains.

THE OTHER: This explains the big piles of peanut shells littering city hall.

THIS: Schwarzenegger: "Let me just make it simple for you."

THAT: Vilifying nurses, cops, firefighters and teachers---that made it pretty simple, all right.

THIS: Stopping kids from learning about so-called "Intelligent Design" would cheapen their educational experience---say sayeth a lawyer for the Dover Area School Board in closing arguments of the first federal court case testing the constitutionality of this so-called concept in public education.

THAT: This is proof alone that there can't possibly be any such thing as "Intelligent Design."

THIS: Councilman Bill Rosendahl wants the dedicated rush-hour "rapid bus" lames---er, lanes---on Wilshire Boulevard in the West Side removed because they deprive local businesses of customers. (Which they do!)

THAT: The L.A. Times carried an editorial denouncing Rosendahl’s proposal, saying that the bus lanes expedite traffic, citing the statistic that a car takes 19 minutes to travel the same stretch of Wilshire that a "rapid bus" does in seven.

THE OTHER: Seems the Times editorial writer has not noticed that people are not giving up cars to take advantage of  the "rapid buses," but instead have instead turned all side streets in West L.A. into Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

THIS: Seems the people riding the "rapid buses," (which this columnist has observed going as fast as twenty-five miles-per-hour), as is almost always the case in this town, are people who do not have cars.

THAT: The West Side grid is still locked, bus lanes or not, as are the teeth of drivers who must sit dead in traffic, staring at a little used "rapid bus" lanes.

THE OTHER: Plenty of peanut shells scattered round the Times, too.

THIS: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, proving at least to be a refreshingly visible mayor, is pushing for a subway to the West Side.

THAT: Never mind that the Red Line subway from downtown to the Valley cost $300 million per mile---fifteen years ago. No one ever seems to talk about light rail anymore.

THE OTHER: Have a peanut, Mr. Mayor?

THIS: Omar Khadr was 15 when he was shot three times and captured at a suspected Al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in July 2002, following a gun battle with U.S. troops.

THAT: He has been held at Guantanamo for three years, during which time he was allegedly beaten, tied up, threatened with rape, and used as a human mop to wipe up urine. He is about to be tried by U.S. military tribunal, and could receive the death penalty.

THE OTHER: “President” George W. Bush: “We do not torture.”

THIS: Omar, of course, is what is known as a “detainee.” Not a “prisoner.”

THAT: Yeah, just a little “time out,” that’s all.

THIS: Ned Rorem, considered by the likes of L.A. Times music critic Mark “What’s New?” Swed as one of the great composers of our time, was one of several composers asked for an assessment of Beethoven by the L.A. Times.

THAT: This gimmick was thinly veiled hype for Esa-Pekka Salonen’s thin renditions of Beethoven symphonies being assayed by the L.A. Phil this year. Said Ned: “If I don’t hear another Beethoven piece again in my life, it won’t be too soon.” And: “I know everything Beethoven ever wrote. I don’t need him anymore.”

THE OTHER: I know very little of what Rorem has written, and might have been curious to hear more, but now. . .I don’t need him anymore.

THIS: Dodgers “owners” Frank and Jamie McCourt hire a punk with a computer who trades away the team’s greatest players, stocks it with nomadic veterans and nobodies, and the “team” sinks like ex-Seinfeld star’s sitcom.

THAT: The punk then fires the thoroughly competent manager Jim Tracy, and Dodgers “owners” Frank and Jamie McCourt then fire the punk.

THE OTHER: Peanuts! Peanuts! Get your peanuts HERE!

THIS: There is an easy answer for all the noble citizens out there who are pushing for "Intelligent Design" in schools as an alternative theory to evolution.

THAT: Evolution is intelligent design.

THE OTHER: Though not intelligent enough to weed out stupidity, arrogance, paranoia, insanity, religious fanaticism, and Texas accents.

THIS: News item: Renee Love, 40, and Sherry Glaser, 45, take their shirts off in Sacramento as part of a peace protest by the group, “Breasts Not Bombs.” They are arrested and could be prosecuted as sex offenders.

THAT: News item: Thirty-two-year-old “Supermodel” Tyra Banks sashays lewdly around in eyepatch-sized briefs and breast harnesses as substantial as spiderwebs, and is retiring at age 32 to start a “media empire.”

THE OTHER: Good that this country always rewards people of principle and integrity.

THIS: Tyra Banks: “So many people were telling me as a black model I wouldn’t be able to accomplish certain things and I wouldn’t be successful in the fashion industry.”

THAT: Yes, Tyra has accomplished a great deal by. . . sashaying lewdly around in eyepatch-sized briefs and breast harnesses as substantial as spiderwebs.

THE OTHER: I’m sure Rosa Parks would be proud of her.

THIS: News item: Ahmad Chalabi, who has gone from helping to dupe the U.S. into invading Iraq to being wanted for murder and embezzlement by the U.S. and Iraq to being a member of the Iraqi government, is set to meet with Queen Condi in Washington, and, he hopes, Dick “Ygor” Cheney.

THAT: Chalabi recently met with high-level government officials in Iran, which recently called for wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

THE OTHER: Don’t throw the past away/ You might need it some rainy day/ Dreams can come true again/ When everything old is new again. . .

THIS: If Chalabi was plastic surgery, he’d be Michael Jackson's face.

THAT: This guy has more comebacks than Dracula.

THE OTHER: Good that this world always rewards people of principle.

THIS: Dodger “owners” Frank and Jamie McCourt have yet to hire a new general manager or manager, and are now getting most of their advice from former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda.

THAT: Lasorda giving you advice about baseball is kind of like Ahmad Chalabi giving you advice about Iraq.

THE OTHER: This guy has more comebacks than Dracula, and is almost as old.

THIS: News item: copy editor at the St. Paul Pioneer-Press is suspended for three days for attending a peace demonstration in Washington D.C.

THAT: News item: longtime L.A. Times columnist and prominent American liberal Robert Scheer---ever a voice of reason and source of fact---is terminated from his Times gig without explanation, beginning in December.

THE OTHER: Guess they were Foxed out.

THIS: Two years ago, at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad, an Iraqi prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, died during an interrogation. His head had been covered with a plastic bag, and he was shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that inhibited his ability to breathe; according to forensic pathologists who have examined the case, he asphyxiated.

THAT: Guess he was permanently “detained.”

THIS: Dr. Bill “Cat Killer” Frist and Speaker of the Refrigerator Dennis Hastert are going after Washington Post reporter Lucy Dalglish for exposing secret U.S. terrorist prisons in Eastern Europe.

THAT: Her story, said Bill and Dennis, “could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks.”

THE OTHER: "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it." --Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1786.

THIS: Dodger "owners" Frank and Jamie McCourt allow all available credible candidates for a big league general manager to sign with other teams.

THAT: But they are spending a lot of dough to install new pastel-colored seats at Dodger Stadium.

THE OTHER: Cindy Sheehan to become next Dodger GM.

THIS: News item: Japan has invented a heated bra.

THAT: Good news for witches.

THIS: Bush orders staff to attend three days of ethics classes in the White House.

THAT: This is an effort by what is certainly the most corrupt and scandal-plagued administration in American history to um, correct itself.

THE OTHER: And after the ethics classes, Laura Bush will refresh everyone on fractions.

THIS: Harriet Miers sent out a memo to White House staffers saying that attendance in the ethics classes is mandatory!

THAT: Or she'll rap your knuckles with a ruler!

THE OTHER: Ethics briefings for the Bush administration? Like lecturing Dracula on the virtues of orange juice.

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