"In the Loop" versus aerial loopdiloops - a truly Seattlish dichotomy

If you know anything about summer events in Seattle, you know that the Blue Angels perform to great redneck fanfare during Seafair's hydroplane races. Think NASCAR on the water with very low-flying fighter jets buzzing the crowd to feed the boatrace passion absent from everyone's daily lives otherwise. Fun in the sun, unless you're trying to cross the bridges over Lake Washington. But instead of joining in on the dockside partying, I got the chance to take some time out yesterday afternoon to join a surprisingly big crowd seeing an utterly antithetical entertainment choice indoors. The movie "In the Loop" is a British satire that features whipsmart writing and a pitch-perfect dissection of the ridiculous run-up to the Iraq War - here fictionalized to never mention Iraq but everyone knows what it's based on. It starts smart, gets bogged down in its own cartwheels and ends up feeling like a movie that was made for TV but somehow got released in theatres. Anyone that knows where BBC America is on their cable spectrum will love it. Anyone that thinks certain NPR shows are overexposed will love it. Anyone that can pick out frisee from a Whole Foods produce section without looking at the signs will love it. But, oddly enough, I didn't love it. Maybe it was the often too-ribald laughter of certain of the professorial and hemp-garmented surrounding me that made me leave the theatre saying that it was smart, perfectly cast, yet utterly unimportant. My rating - B-minus. Wait for the rental, but surely check it out then.

One personal new web fave - The Daily Beast's "The Week in Culture" is Tina Brown boiled down into a spreadable paste. If you're looking to spin through 10-20 quick hits on what you should know according to the smarter-than-you NY intelligensia that surely hates our freedom, here you must go each weekend. Me likey.

Hope your own Sunday is also a long list of things "done" off the "to do" list with still a chunk of day left to enjoy. Rock on.

It takes a Tucker to know a Tucker

Newsflash - Tucker Carlson jumped the shark 5 years ago. Double newsflash - he's still bitter about the bitch-slap-fest Jon Stewart delivered to him in the waning days of "Crossfire" on CNN (Tucker hosted, before being fired and sequentially being dumped by just about every other network besides Al Jezeera). I'm no fan of Tina Brown's new blog, The Daily Beast. But they are getting the buzz (e.g. Meghan McCain's work). So to connect the dots, Tucker Carlson has a rant posted there today that tries to take Jon Stewart to task for his recent dust-up with CNBC and Jim Cramer. If you've not already eaten a meal you enjoyed, you must read it. However you click through to things inconsequential, I must provide a personal memory of Tucker Carlson's career prior to jumping that shark like Fonzie in two leather jackets.

Way back when it was still cool, Tina Brown started up a magazine via Miramax called "Talk". She'd been dumped by "The New Yorker" (thankfully) and needed a new platform to ruin. "Talk" was inconsequential. But one profile sticks in my mind. A young and not quite as prickish Tucker Carlson interviewed the then Governor George W. Bush as he tested the waters of running for Prezidunt. In that piece, Tucker described a car ride conversation with Dubya wherein he asked about a hot-button issue from those halcyon days long ago - the scheduled execution of Karla Faye Tucker. When asked by Tucker what the female Tucker might say to gain an execution reprieve, Dubya responded mockingly with "please don't kill me" accompanied by frat guy disdain and unbridled assholery. And that, dear reader, is the man Tucker Carlson went on to defend time and time again. Now, after 5 years of being surely mocked by the same reporters he made so much hay from attacking, he's coming back at Jon Stewart. What. A. Dick. I only hope Jon Stewart takes the bait and lights that fuse. Because if we as a society of people willing to tilt at windmills, we might as well shoot for another feeble structure that's almost down on the ground already. Easy targets make Hulk happy.

Hope your own willingness to get in the scrum today isn't due to some sort of St. Patty's Day streetfight gone awry. Rock on.