Before the sun rises too high on a day when Seattle almost hit 100 degrees, Maya struts in summery style.

Before the sun rises too high on a day when Seattle almost hit 100 degrees, Maya struts in summery style.
Originally uploaded by emaggie

"Go Brew Crew!"

"Go Brew Crew!"
Originally uploaded by emaggie

"Firestono!"

With the World in such a freefall spin, one thing I hope we all can agree on is that car repair is utter crap. We can get second opinions on anything that will cost us more than 50 bucks. But call bullshite on a mechanic and you're a communist. Essentially. This "can't we all get along" rant comes from the point of view of someone waiting all morning on a basic brake job. Advertised by Firestone as $190. Surreptiously upgraded to $303 with an extra year's warranty. On a brake job. Oh, and they thought that since my brake fluid was "contaminated" that I should spend another $85. Ahem. I'll pay $190, thank you very much. And I'll be sure to let y'all know hereafter what Firestone has to say about my communism.

Just so everyone ignores the impression that I'm alone in jousting with corporate windmills, you owe it to yourself to watch Michael Moore eviscerate Wolf Blitzer yesterday. We've not yet seen "Sicko" and I'm sorry about that fact given my willingness to promote the film. Yet Mr. Moore appears to be the only man in America currently able to secure "LIVE!" airtime to question the ridiculous charges leveled at him. It's a long clip, but entirely worth it. Please watch.



Hope you all find a pleasant moment to be outraged today. Rock on.

"After long deliberation with my closest advisers, I've decided that I should move on and clear some brush..."

I'm prepping to take some time off from blogging given the expected craziness of the upcoming month. But I simply can't sit idly by without offering my brief shot at the Scooter Libby commutation granted by Dubya. Plainly, no one's satisfied. Nutjob conservatives are bitching about their outrageous claim that he should have been pardoned. Everyone else can't understand why an "excessive" sentence translates to "no time served" in Dubya's view of assessing a felony conviction. Where I fall is firmly upon this point - Dubya screwed it up embarrassingly, once again. If he'd pardoned him sooner or later, it would be defensible. Wrong, but defensible. If Dubya had chosen any other course of action imaginable, it would be somehow defensible. Still wrong, but you get my point. So what Dubya chose was the utterly wrongest wrong in the whole panorama. He praises the prosecutor, stands by the jury's ruling, and then throws the whole process under the bus. That's Dubya. Always wrong, never in doubt. I can't wait for the "history will judge" wheels to start turning. Oh wait...they've already begun doing so. Worst. President. Ever. Period.

Hope your own pre-Fourth of July deliberations deal entirely with beef versus fowl. Rock on.

"A Mighty Heart" is a minor effort

I'll admit going into the new Angelina Jolie flick, "A Mighty Heart", hoping for a stunner. Instead, it was much smaller and much less engaging than I'd expected. My rating - a bland C-plus. Jolie is wonderful - passionate, controlled, with a flawless accent and complete command of the screen. Some of the surrounding cast is also quite good, although Dan Futterman as the doomed Daniel Pearl is at best a cardboard cutout who seems to have gotten the job because he looks like Pearl's clone. But this is one to wait to rent. Which is really too bad because it will probably disappear from public view with little more than a whisper of respect. This tragic story deserves much more attention. It just feels way too early to have gone after this story on film.

We head back to Seattle this evening after a wonderful week in Santa Barbara. The weather has been unparalleled in it's beauty. Warm, dry, clear days stacked up one after another. But like much of the country this time of year, drought is leading to the threat of a tough fire season. Last night after a artful, killer meal at Emilio's (my sentimental favorite restaurant here for a long list of reasons), we went back to my in-laws house just in time to catch the moonrise. A wildfire many miles away filled the air with a burnt smell and cast the just past full moon with the most stunning bright orange glow. I can't recall ever seeing anything like it. It looked like Mars, surrounded by a halo of ochre clouds. How sad it is to appreciate a view due to forest fires in the unseen distance. Yet how hauntingly beautiful it was.

Hope your own views are beautifully guilt-free. Rock on.