Voter nightmare comes true with presidential election voter recall

On the morning of Nov. 8, I confidently, though with some bit of apprehension and hesitation, went to bed at 2 a.m. with the knowledge Gov. George W. Bush had won the election and would be the nation’s 43rd president of the United States.

I had been switching stations all night from Fox to ABC then on to NBC and CBS with the exception of CNN since I don’t have cable in my room.

I can’t speak for everyone else, but I was getting aggravated waiting for the final results to come in since I wanted to go to sleep.

Then around 1:15 a.m. Dallas time, I switched to CBS for a second. Dan Rather announced the Florida results which showed Bush had won and then CBS, NBC and Fox (ABC was the last to report), went live from Austin saying what, according to Rather, CNN had already said minutes before that Bush was now the 43rd president of the United States.

Somewhere between the hours of 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. that cold, Wednesday morning, however, I had a nightmare. The dream was we still didn’t have a new president and that another recount had been called. It would be another hour or so from the time I went to sleep that Governor Bush’s Democratic Presidential Candidate and current President Bill Clinton’s Vice President Al Gore would concede; the first time that is.

My disappointment and horrors were verified when I turned the TV Wednesday morning to find every news anchor on every station saying they still don’t know who the next president of the United States would be.

I was excited about this election, and I don’t get excited about much (those who know me personally will verify this). I hate most all sports and don't have a favorite team, though I do bowl and play racquetball.

I knew, watching the election results, how people felt whenever there is a super bowl, World Series or Stanley Cup and their favorite team is playing.

What made me feel especially good was, unlike some people I know, I went out and voted.

I voted a week early on Friday Nov. 3. I got in line around 10:50 a.m. at the only school in Mesquite that held early voting and was done by around 12:15 p.m.

The aggravation of waiting for about an hour and a half in the voting line, though, didn’t phase me at all. The time went by fast. Maybe it was the knowledge I felt I was doing something constructive with my time for once.

I’ve heard all the incredibly dumb excuses why people don't vote. They go right under those reasons why people don’t work out. They don’t have the time. They have too much to do. They work all the time. The fact is, aside from being apathetic; they are just too damn lazy.

Of course, when it comes to the presidential election, they say their vote doesn’t count. They say it’s the Electoral College that determines the final results.

Some simply don’t care. As long as the nation’s current events don’t interfere with their personal lives, people could care less about who is running for president.

I cared about who would be running the country the next four years. It’s safe to say, so did everyone else standing in that small lobby waiting to vote (some had to stand outside in the rain but not for long). We all came together to do one thing; vote for who we thought was the best candidate.

A guy behind me had a hat on with the name "Gore" on it. No one said a word until we came closer to the front line and one of the ladies running the voting booths kindly asked him to take it off because he was advertising. The guy didn’t protest. He understood and put his hat in his pocket.

It’s not like the joke we’re seeing in Florida now where outraged minorities and confused residents talk about how both they and the candidate they voted for got screwed.

It’s been said the dumbest question in the world is the one people don’t ask. If the ballots people filled out in Palm Beach County Tuesday night were confusing, why in the name of Hell did he/she fill them out? Why in the name of Hell didn’t he/she ask someone?

The ballot, which was published in one of Florida’s local papers, was similar to the ballots residents in Chicago’s Cook County filled out Tuesday night. I have yet to hear anyone from the windy city complain. What makes Palm Beach different from Cook County? Are people up north more intelligent than those living in the sunshine state?

It’s Thursday Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. as I write this column. The latest recounts from Florida have barely changed who won the election. They’re practically the same as when I went to bed Wednesday morning.

Bush is still in the lead with 2,909,661 and Gore; 2,907,877.

We may not know until Nov. 17th when all the overseas ballots are counted before, we find out who won.

I seriously doubt it will end there. Bush is already forming a cabinet. The Gore campaign wants to file a lawsuit and have the final decision made by the courts.

Personally, I am sick of hearing about it.

My advice to the Bush and Gore camps is to think about what is in the best interest for the country and have one concede.

No one’s going to like the outcome regardless of who wins.

©11/15/2000

My Personal Worst Films: Battlefield Earth (2000)

Battlefield Earth NO STARS
PG-13, 117m. 2000

Cast & Credits: John Travolta (Terl), Barry Pepper (Jonnie Goodboy Tyler), Forest Whitaker (Ker), Kim Coates (Carlo), Richard Tyson (Robert The Fox), Sabine Karsenti (Chrissie), Michael Byrne (Parson Staffer), Sean Hewitt (Heywood), Michael Perron (Rock), Shaun Austin-Olsen (Planetship), Kelly Preston (Chirk). Screenplay by Corey Mandell and J.D. Shapiro based on the book by L. Ron Hubbard. Directed by Roger Christian.

I’d be lying if I said "Battlefield Earth" had some redeeming entertainment value. The film has none, hence the NO STAR rating I have gladly bestowed on it. Thinking of something positive to say about the picture is like thinking of something nice to say about someone or something I hate. I come up with nothing.

The movie is based on the 1980 bestseller by L. Ron Hubbard. I haven’t read it, but I did glance through it one day at the bookstore marveling at how long it was (over 1,000 pages). I held out hope seeing since this is John Travolta’s pet project (besides starring in, he is also co-producer here along with Jonathan D. Krane and Elie Samaha) who is also involved with scientology (which Hubbard supposedly started). I had no doubt that Hubbard’s book, much like author Frank Herbert’s Dune, had the word “epic” written all over it.

The only thing epic about "Battlefield Earth" is how dreadfully awful it is. It is one of the ugliest, unbelievable motion pictures I have seen in a long time. The film cost its studio, Warner Brothers, $65 to $70 million according to some entertainment articles and watching it made me ask, where did all the money go?

Almost everything seen on screen is obscured by darkness. It’s as though the filmmakers and studio execs at Warner Brothers were so horrified by the final product, they felt it was better if the sets and ships were illuminated at night by a lot of explosions and people running for their lives.

All the sets and costumes are reminiscent of earlier memorable science fiction, action-adventure pictures and sci-fi television shows. Destroyed cities like Washington D.C. are almost identical to what the Capitol building looked like at the end of "Deep Impact" (1998) when a meteor hit the ocean except the buildings are surrounded by sprawling vegetation.

The alien fighter planes look like an early concept for what became the armored police helicopter Roy Scheider flew in the John Badham movie, "Blue Thunder" (1983). The ships run on four engines that exhibit a blue, purplish light except when they are in-flight, they don’t seem to move at all especially at night. When in battle, the fighters line up the way the video game characters in Space Invaders do waiting to be picked off by Air Force jets that apparently can still fly despite lying dormant in a hangar for 2,000 plus years.

The remains of the human race, most of whom either hide out in caves or are prisoners of an alien race known as the Psychlos, are led in revolt by Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper). His name sounds like the ones a few of the “Greaser” characters were apparently christened with when they were born like “Ponyboy Curtis”, “Sodapop” and “Two-Bit Matthews” from director Francis Ford Coppola’s "The Outsiders" (1983). The outfits they wear are a cross between the cavemen of the prehistoric times and the ones seen in Kevin Costner’s Waterworld (1995).

The film’s sex appeal comes in the form of the long protruding tongue Travolta’s wife (Kelly Preston in a brief cameo as a female Psychlo) sticks out. The scene reminded me of those fantasies the male characters have in "Ally McBeal" (1997) when they see a hot looking blond step off the elevator and where Jabba the Hutt licked Princess Leia’s face in "Return of the Jedi" (1983).

I wondered how this alien race made it to Earth. It didn’t take long for me to learn the answer. The Psychlos came here via transporter (similar to the one seen in the Star Trek movies and television shows) from their home planet called, believe it or not, “Psychlo.” The most we ever see of the planet, however, is a city I assume that looks like a giant nuclear power plant with factories in the background.

On Earth, the glass dome the Psychlos live in is a cross between the one the humans resided in "Logan’s Run" (1976) and Disney’s Epcot Center except the entire place was once a zoo, now converted to imprison humans.

The Psychlos themselves might as well be called Klingons from the Star Trek franchise. They are much taller than humans, unattractive and have long hair. All that’s missing are the large protruding lumps that stick out from their foreheads down to their spines. Instead of large facial lumps, the Psychlos sport nose pinchers held by two leather ropes that go around their heads and look as though lines of snot were spewing from their noses.

The aliens act like disgruntled employees who work for a major corporation. They either can’t wait to quit or be transferred to another division. The story centers around Terl (Travolta), Psychlo’s chief of security, who oversees Earth’s mining operation.

When he is not laughing maniacally, sitting in a bar downing drinks, belittling his assistant, Ker (a barely recognizable Forest Whitaker), and threatening to report fellow co-workers to “the home office”, Terl is checking on Jonnie’s and the other slave’s efforts to mine gold all of which comes from Fort Knox in the form of rectangular blocks (Terl thinks they actually dug it up).

"Battlefield Earth" dredged up dreadful memories of some of the celluloid trash Travolta churned out back in the 1980s that include "Staying Alive", "Two of a Kind", the Look Who’s Talking sequels, "Perfect" and "Grease 2" (oh wait, he wasn’t in that movie, but it was still a lousy one nonetheless). Those films at least had one thing going for them. I could laugh at how bad they were.

"Battlefield Earth" is not even a fun bad movie. It is a wasted atrocity and an abomination in science fiction movie making.

©5/16/2000

My Personal Worst Films: The Hollywood Knights (2000)

The Hollywood Knights «½
R, 92m. 1980

Cast & Credits: Robert Wuhl (Newbomb Turk), Fran Drescher (Sally), Tony Danza (Duke), Michelle Pfeiffer (Suzie Q), Gary Graham (Jimmy Shine), Stuart Pankin (Dudley Laywicker), Gailard Sartain (Bimbeau). Written and directed by Floyd Mutrux.

A number of “coming-of-age” movies come to mind while watching "The Hollywood Knights." There is George Lucas’ 1973 hot rod film, "American Graffiti", which "The Hollywood Knights" gets most of its ideas from (or should I say steal) with the exception of its raunchiness that likely comes from "Porky’s" (1982) and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982).

The difference is those three movies are considerably better than "The Hollywood Knights." Even "Porky’s" which is on my personal list of “Movies Critics Hated That Were Not As Bad As Critics Said They Were.” There is almost nothing funny or original about any of the jokes in The Hollywood Knights.

The film, released theatrically in 1980, marked the big screen debuts of Michelle Pfeiffer (Scarface - 1983), Tony Danza (TV’s "Taxi" – 1978 – 1983) and Robert Wuhl (HBO’s "Arli$$" - 1996 - 2002). The picture also featured Fran Drescher whose annoying accent eventually won her the lead role year’s later on CBS’ "The Nanny" (1993 – 1999).

If you ask any of these four to compare "The Hollywood Knights" to their later work, chances are you’d probably get the same response Tom Hanks gives when entertainment reporters ask him about his roles in "Bachelor Party" (1984) and "The Man with One Red Shoe" (1985) as opposed to "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) and "The Green Mile" (1999). I have often heard how his face turns red with embarrassment when asked about his earlier comedies.

On the other hand, Pfeiffer’s, Danza’s, Wuhl’s and Drescher’s responses might be what Michael Caine said when someone asked him why he did "Jaws: The Revenge" (1987). Caine reportedly said he did it for the money.

"The Hollywood Knights", which takes place Halloween night in 1965, is an American Graffiti want-to-be. The picture is full of classic automobiles from the fifties and sixties (there is even a car similar to the one James Dean drove when he died). As the song, “Wipeout” is heard in the background, fellow drag racers gun their engines at the red traffic signals along Hollywood Boulevard ready to hit their accelerators the minute the light turns green.

The best, perhaps only good thing about the film, is the soundtrack which features tunes from The Beach Boys, Wilson Pickett, Jan & Dean, The Byrds, The Supremes, The Four Seasons and Ray Charles. Even if you don’t know who I’m talking about, chances are you’ll at least be familiar with the song titles that include “Surfing USA”, “Rag Doll”, “In the Midnight Hour”, “What’d I Say”, and “He’s So Fine.” Instead of radio personality Wolfman Jack announcing the hits like in "American Graffiti", it is some unknown disc jockey called “Surf Sam” in The Hollywood Knights.

The musical soundtrack is the reason why the picture has never been released on video and digital videodisc until now. Like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975) and Heavy Metal (1981) before it, which took years before finally bowing on home video, “Knights’” distributor, Columbia Pictures, had problems negotiating the musical rights. The film marks the last of that so-called list of “Most requested titles not on video” (John Wayne’s Hondo (1953) has yet to surface).

Like Steven Spielberg’s "1941" (1979), which had one laugh in the movie’s opening sequence where the director makes fun of his previous box office hit, "Jaws" (1975), I laughed once watching "The Hollywood Knights" and it too, was in the beginning.

The scene happens when a hot rod stops alongside the curb where an old woman is sitting waiting for the bus. Sticking out of the trunk is an arm that starts moving. The old woman is horrified thinking it is a dead body. The leader of “The Hollywood Knights”, Newbomb Turk (Wuhl) gets out and closes the trunk acting like no one saw a thing. This is the kind of stuff you’d see the frat boys in "Animal House" (1978) do.

The rest of the film is awash in sexual conversations about whether so-so “puts out” and how someone “came too quickly” before doing it in the backseat. There is also scat and flatulence humor as Newbomb and his gang enact their revenge on police, city and school board officials for closing down their favorite drive-in, Tubby C’s. The group crash Halloween parties mooning people, spike the punch with their urine, and kidnap the class nerd (Stuart Pankin) in between trading pictures of female classmates sunbathing in the nude and watching them undress in an area the women think is safe from peepers.

Every once in a while, an egg or two hits the windshield of a police car but you never find out who threw it. The movie appeals only to those who at the age of 30 still find this stuff amusing.

What’s great about the DVD edition is I can fast forward through much of this with the click of a button and get to some of the brief scenes between Danza’s and Pfeiffer’s characters (she plays a carhop who dreams of becoming an actress) as the couple discuss their future. There is also a subplot involving one of their buddies (Gary Graham) who is going to Vietnam.

When one of the characters says how “Things change. Nothing ever stays the same,” the quote reminded me of the underlying theme in "American Graffiti." The characters played by Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith and Cindy Williams were high school graduates who, near the end, realized they were now adults.

Most of those characters in that film spent their last night either with their girlfriend, cruised the streets looking for girls to date or looked for someone to race. The worst any of them ever did wrong was yank the back wheels off a police car or pay someone to buy them alcohol because he or she was too young to drink.

The characters in "The Hollywood Knights" are high school seniors who are months away from graduating. The trouble is most of them act like they are still in grade school.

©5/10/00

Even dogs are not safe from road rage drivers!

A Bichon Frise - NOT Leo.

Hundreds of innocent people, maybe more, are killed a year by upset drivers who become murderers the minute they get behind the wheel of their vehicles. Ironic to think the spokesman for road rage are not human beings but an innocent little white dog named Leo.

The dog was a ten-year-old Bichon Frise who belonged to driver Sara McBurnett in San Jose, Calif. The beloved pet lost its life when it was picked up and thrown into oncoming traffic by an irate driver last month.

McBurnett admitted rear ending a guy’s black sport-utility vehicle with Virginia license plates with her station wagon in a story by Washington Post reporter, Michael D. Shear, that appeared in the March 12, 2000 edition of The Dallas Morning News.

“I was going to say ‘sorry’ and apologize,” McBurnett said in the article.

But the killer, described as a “wiry man in his late 20s or early 30s with dark hair, a goatee and a baseball cap,” got out and started cursing at her.

“He seemed irrational,” she said in the story. “He didn’t take me on. He took on my little dog. What a coward.”

“It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” said one witness, a San Jose web developer whose name wasn’t used in the article, adding the guy got back in his car soon after.

“It looked like he was kind of debating what to do,” he said. “He went into the right turn lane and took off.”

According to the story, police at the time were pursuing the incident as an animal cruelty case with a $5,000 reward being offered for tips leading to the arrest of the suspect. The amount went from $5,000 to $40,000 in a matter of days as radio listeners and dog lovers from around the San Jose area and around the world sent pledges to a local station which enlisted the help of a humane society.

I first heard about the story March 3 on exite.com under the heading “Oddly Enough News.”

The story made me ill. It was even worse the following week when “Inside Edition” did a segment about McBurnett, the dog and the bizarre incident.

I could tell watching the segment that it was meant to play on people’s emotions as the sad, somber music was heard in the background and the camera zoomed in often on the portrait of Leo, his tongue sticking out to form a smile. I must say I had a lump in my throat after seeing it.

I would have thought the tabloid press was going too far with a story like this but then McBurnett asked on the “Inside Edition” segment, “What if this had been someone’s child?”

She has a point.

If some lunatic out there with serious personal problems is willing to grab someone’s beloved pet by the neck and throw it into oncoming traffic because they got rear ended, who is to say that person wouldn’t do the same thing to an infant or child?

When people called into San Jose radio shows, some listeners on the “Inside Edition” segment were quoted saying they’d like to throw the suspect into oncoming traffic and not stop.

Road rage, like kids carrying loaded guns to school, is becoming a rising epidemic with no clear solution. Last year, billboard signs were posted along Dallas highways that said something to the point of “Just keep it up with the bad attitude and I’ll make the traffic go even slower.”

It is obvious some advertising agency produced the clever sayings, but the messages were quoted by someone called “God.”

This year, a different approach is being taken to combat road rage. Billboard signs posted around the Dallas area ask drivers if they recall the ending of their favorite movie or if they remember their wedding day.

Some believe one way to cure road rage is to reconstruct the nation’s highways and make them wider. Personally, I think all that’s going to do is upset more idiot drivers who refuse to allow for such things to happen.

I am not an advertising major, but I do have an idea on addressing the issue of road rage. NBC could have a star from one of their hit television shows do another one of those “More you know” commercials. The station has been doing them for a few years now that feature stars like Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer and Law & Order’s Angie Harmon who offer tips like “talk to your kids.”

They can have a star from “Friends” introduce Leo the dog on a picture and talk about how he was the victim of someone’s road rage.

Perhaps he or she can add how some of the people watching this commercial might find it funny (because I know of some people who did find the incident humorous).

Then they ask the viewer to imagine, instead of a dog, this being their infant or child who is either assaulted or thrown into oncoming traffic.

The commercial could end with them saying something like “when someone on the road upsets you, take a deep breath and think about what you might do before doing it. Your actions could not only cost the lives of others, but your own as well.”

©4/19/00

My Personal Worst Films: The Omega Code (1999)

The Omega Code «½
PG-13, 100m. 1999

Cast & Credits: Casper Van Dien (Gillen Lane), Michael York (Stone Alexander), Catherine Oxenberg (Cassandra Barashe), Michael Ironside (Dominic), Jan Triska (Prophet No. 1), Gregory Wagrowski (Prophet No. 2), Devon Odessa (Jennifer Lane), William Hootkins (Sir Percival Lloyd), Robert Ito (Shimoro Lin Che), Janet Carroll (Dorothy Thompson), George Coe (Sen. Jack Thompson), Robert F. Lyons (General). Screenplay by Stephan Blinn and Hollis Barton. Directed by Robert Marcarelli.

"The Omega Code", an apocalyptic thriller, based on events supposedly foretold in The Bible’s Book of Daniel and Revelation, belongs in that pile of forgettable made-for-TV movies Hollywood made last year about the Y2K computer bug.

These are the kinds of films where the recordable tab on the side of the videocassette rentals ought to be restored so people can copy over them.

The film, which played in only a few theaters last October, was considered by its independent distributor, Gener8xion Entertainment, a success after making the list of top twenty most watched movies at the box office.

The unexpected triumph was enough that ABC News did a brief story about the picture and the audiences who were flocking to see it. The majority of patrons who paid to see The Omega Code were those faithful viewers of The Christian Broadcasting Network who promoted the end-of-the-world thriller on its local stations.

A woman interviewed by ABC commented how there was finally a movie out there now that followed her religious beliefs on how the final battle between Good and Evil, between God and the Antichrist, will take place.

Upon hearing that comment, I had to wonder if that person and I actually saw the same film. As far as independent productions are concerned, "The Omega Code" doesn’t have the clever believability, or perhaps I should say gullibility, of last summer’s "The Blair Witch Project" and lacks the juicy, witty dialogue of Quentin Tarantino’s "Pulp Fiction" (1994).

The film is completely devoid of any suspense. It has no hero worth rooting for and makes the mistake of portraying the Antichrist, who is played by Michael York ("Logan’s Run"-1976) into a likable character. It is true that movie villains are the most colorful characters who steal the show. "The Omega Code" was promoted as a religious movie and depending on one’s religious beliefs and how he or she was brought up, it would be wrong if the audience rooted for the devil.

The picture borrows ideas found in author Michael Drosnin’s 1997 controversial book, "The Bible Code." The book, like the film, follows the notion that The Bible has hidden mathematical equations in the form of crossword puzzles that reveal certain events past, present and future. They can only be translated in the Hebrew language with the use of computers.

The book said such things as the assassinations of Israeli President Yitzhak Rabin and JFK, the fiery end of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, and the Oklahoma City bombing were all mentioned in “The Good Book.” I didn’t believe a word it said but just imagine what director Oliver Stone ("JFK"-1991) could have done, or can still do, with such a project.

Ironically, "The Omega Code" cites only one reference that wasn’t even mentioned in Drosnin’s book thus making the picture even less believable. We meet Gillen Lane (Casper Van Dien), a popular motivational speaker and author who explains to a talk show audience how Princess Diana’s death in 1997 was foretold using this so called “Bible Code.” Lane mentions such phrases in The Bible that when translated reveal the words, “tunnel”, “Paris” and the number “5757” which mean the year 1997.

As a result of his beliefs, Lane is given the chance to work with Stone Alexander (York), a power hungry Middle Eastern politician who already has his hands on “The Bible Code” disc thanks to his personal bodyguard and former priest, Dominic (Michael Ironside). Alexander thinks Lane can unlock the final code that will reveal his destiny and bring about the apocalypse.

Soon Lane is overcome with visions of horsemen and hooded monks that don’t make much sense and realizes he has been sticking up for the wrong guy. The Bible Code’s revelations come up every ten minutes as the camera zooms in periodically on printouts found in Alexander’s underground computer center that say “rebirth of empire begins” and “ten horns unite world peace.”

Subplots are revealed that involve the destruction of Middle Eastern synagogues, presumably by Israeli and Palestinian forces, but why they occurred are never fully explained. What we do see is that Alexander is the only one who can bring about world peace.

We see two supernatural prophets preach the word of God throughout Jerusalem to anyone who will listen. The climax comes right out of a scene in "Star Wars" (1977) where the Death Star is bearing down on Princess Leia’s home planet. Remember when Leia (Carrie Fisher) tells Peter Cushing’s Governor Tarkin the supposed hidden location of the rebel base but the Empire blows up her home planet regardless?

When Lane reveals the final code to Alexander in an attempt to call off World War III, the political leader gives his armed forces the ok to attack anyway.

The only saving grace the film has is York who is one of my favorite actors. Like Sam Neill ("The Final Conflict"-1981), Jack Nicholson ("The Witches of Eastwick"-1987) and Al Pacino ("The Devil’s Advocate"-1997), all of whom have played the Prince of Darkness before him, York displays the same traits of his predecessors and has all the best lines.

“I was Judas leading Christ to the resurrection,” he tells Lane. “I was Hitler leading the Jews to extinction.”

York’s Alexander is handsome, impeccably dressed, and says things that make you think he is a man of great promise. When he is shot in the head midway through the film, (a prophecy also revealed on a computer printout), the world mourns the way they did when JFK was assassinated. When the leaders of seven nations come to Alexander’s bedside the minute he miraculously survives his head wound, the political leader calls it “a bedside summit.”

Is there really someone out there called the “Antichrist” who will one day call himself God and bring about the destruction of mankind? Some said the Antichrist was Hitler. When the Gulf War began in the late 80s, people rented the documentary, "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" (1981), thinking Nostradamus’ references to a Middle Eastern prince was Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Some believe he, or “it”, is already here and is only a matter of time before they make themselves known.

I’d love to see a movie made that follows with what the Book of Revelation tells us. "The Omega Code" is not it. The film is nothing more than a cheap attempt for religious organizations to make it big in Hollywood. It doesn’t challenge, change much less question one’s beliefs on how the world will end. I believe the end of mankind will happen when the sun becomes a giant gas bubble and swallows up the entire solar system. That isn’t supposed to happen for another billion years.

Up until now, apocalyptic films have come in the forms of disaster movies where aliens in spaceships the size of pancakes destroy manmade landmarks like the White House ("Independence Day"-1996) and meteors “the size of Texas” ("Armageddon"-1998) threaten to put us into another ice age.

There is a group of books out now called the Left Behind series that in recent years has become so popular, authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have written a separate series for kids. Both works are based on events discussed in the Book of Revelation.

The first novel appropriately titled, "Left Behind", begins in great detail how Israel’s enemies were miraculously destroyed by fire and large hailstones while certain people all over the world from passengers and flight crews in planes to automobile drivers suddenly disappeared into thin air for no apparent reason, leaving only their clothes and belongings behind. The result was a slew of traffic pileups and thousands of jets in the air either crashing or flying on autopilot.

I found those events in that book intriguing, if not horrifying than I did with Gillen Lane’s beliefs that mankind’s destiny, as well as Princess Diana’s, can all be found in “The Good Book.”

©2/28/2000

Farewell Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy...how can we ever forget you!

All good things end eventually.

It does not matter what that something is. Could be a favorite television show that ends due to low ratings or a long running comic book title that ceases publication due to lousy storylines and low sales.

Who would have thought the Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown, which according to the Jan. 1, 2000 issue of Newsweek, appears in 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and 21 languages would come to an end, but it has.

The final weekly comic strip, published Jan. 3, 2000, featured that beloved beagle, Snoopy, sitting atop his wooden doghouse in front of a typewriter looking at a letter he just wrote to the millions of loyal fans.

The letter was from the strip’s creator, Charles M. Schulz, who announced his unexpected retirement late last November after being diagnosed by doctors with colon cancer.

“Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy...how can I ever forget them...” Schulz wrote.

The final Sunday Peanuts comic strip will appear in newspapers nationwide Feb. 13.

The thought of no more new Charlie Brown comic strips is like mourning the sudden death of a loved one.

I have probably read maybe 20 or 30 comic strips from the Peanuts gang in newspapers and books the past two decades. I cannot say I recall most of the plots except the ones involving Snoopy, who always stole the show and had a mind of his own. In the world of make believe, Snoopy was either the Red Baron, the flying ace from World War I, or an aspiring writer.

In a “Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965), perhaps the only animated holiday show I watch every year, I loved how the smart aleck, imaginative dog danced on his own and yelled “Boo” the moment Lucy announced his master would be in charge of the school play.

“Man’s best friend,” Charlie Brown later said sarcastically.

There were other things loyal fans related to as they read the comic strips.

“He’s independent, helpful and kind,” said 70-year-old Rollie Hester in the Today section of the Jan. 3, 2000, edition of The Dallas Morning News. “What more do you need to know about Charlie Brown?”

In the same section which ran a feature story about the comic strip ending, 17-year-old Kelly Hester related to the character Linus and his security blanket.

“I’ve had a teddy bear, T.J., ever since I was little,” she was quoted as saying.

As much as I cringe to say it, I too had kind of a security blanket when I was little. It was a stuffed dog I named "Bob" that I slept with until probably kindergarten. I assume it is still in the attic (not that I am needing it now or anything).

Seems several characters Schulz wrote about were really caricatures of himself. According to the same column in The Dallas Morning News, when Charlie Brown had a crush on a red-haired girl, the cartoonist modeled her after the love of his life who turned down his marriage proposal.

Schroeder’s love for piano playing Beethoven mirrored Schulz’s love for classical music while his devout Christian upbringing is instilled in Linus who often quoted from the bible.

Last month, the company I work for was giving away Christmas ornaments to all the employees. The one most everyone attempted to grab was the ornament of Snoopy since they knew it would now be worth money.

A coworker named Jerry Jones (yes, his name is Jerry Jones, and I am not referring to the owner of the Dallas Cowboys) had trouble figuring out the meaning of the Jan. 2 edition of the colorized Sunday Charlie Brown comic strip.

That is not at all surprising. Schulz told Newsweek the ideas do not come anymore and often struggled to find the right expression.

“Words are just gone,” Schulz said.

That comic featured a drenched Peppermint Patty during a football game asking “Chuck” what he was going to do with the ball. Finally, Marcie tells her that everyone has gone home and that she should also leave as well.

“We had fun, didn’t we Marcie,” Peppermint Patty said.

“Yes sir, we had fun,” Marcie replied.

Jerry eventually concluded this was Schulz’s way of saying he had fun writing Peanuts (a title the cartoonist has been quoted saying he hates) for close to 50 years.

Although there will be no new Charlie Brown strips to read, it is comforting to think that hopefully kids in the 21st century will not be quoting from the foul-mouthed disrespectful kids of “South Park” (1997).

Maybe they will relate to the characters and situations written in the old Charlie Brown comic strips dating back to 1950 which will run in newspapers across the country and perhaps the world.

If you think that would never happen, guess again.

Carlos Moreno, another coworker I know who takes immense pride at calling himself a “short timer”, told me that at the company meetings, the voices he hears from the supervisors are like those incomprehensible sounds’ adults uttered in the Peanuts specials.

A few weeks ago, I tried writing a film review of Oliver Stone’s football epic, “Any Given Sunday”. I only got as far as the second paragraph.

That was farther than Snoopy got when he tried to author the great American novel. He could only make it as far as the first line: “It was a dark and stormy night.”

“Good writing is hard work,” the beagle said.

How true.

©1/26/00

Bush’s lack of intellect doesn’t mean he can’t run the country

Perhaps one of the only joys I get out of going to work Friday afternoons is not the hour-long drive to McKinney.

It is that much of that hour is spent listening to the Rush Limbaugh show on WBAP at 1 p.m.

I never thought the day would come when I would say I am a student enrolled in the “Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies” until the night of Nov. 4, 1999.

That was the night Dallas based KDXA channel 5 news anchorwoman Jane McGarry said shortly before the 10 p.m. newscast that Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush Jr. failed his first political exam.

The exam was given by Andy Hiller, a political reporter for Boston based WHDH-TV, who asked Bush the name the leaders of Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan.

According to an article by the Associated Press in the Nov. 5, 1999, edition of The Dallas Morning News, Bush scored 25 percent on the quiz, getting only one question partially correct. The question was to name the leader of Taiwan. Bush said it was “Lee” referring to Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui.

I didn’t bother to find out that night what the channel 5 story was about. I knew, just as Limbaugh did, that this was just another bold attempt by the liberal press to bash a conservative presidential candidate and I was right.

Limbaugh immediately went on the offensive the next day and I enjoyed listening to every minute of it. I got to admit it. The guy makes sense at what he says. Bush failing a political exam was not news.

“Are you a journalist or a reporter,” the talk show host asked his “loyal listeners” but addressing, those liberals currently in the journalism profession and those planning on pursuing it.

Limbaugh continued saying Hiller fit his definition of a journalist defining him as someone who creates news for his own “self-aggrandizement.”

Hiller was not, in Limbaugh’s terms, a reporter which he defined as someone who goes, covers a story and reports what happened.

“The Doctor of Democracy”, a title Limbaugh goes by, was right on the money when he said if people are going to judge Bush’s intellect because of this quiz and say he is unfit to be president, then perhaps we ought to develop a whole new system on the way people apply for jobs.

Limbaugh suggested starting with Hillary Clinton who is running for senator of New York.

New Yorkers, for example, should ask her such questions as where Yankee Stadium is and how do you get there? How many people reside in the state of New York and how many of those citizens are registered voters? What the crime statistics for New York City over the past five years?

Such questioning, however, shouldn’t just apply to those running for political office. If someone applies to be a manager of a computer support helpdesk, the interviewer should not be concerned on whether the person managed a call center before that had a hold time of less than three minutes.

The interviewer should ask he/she such computer related questions as what do the letters “PC” stand for? What is a print queue? What is a mini hub? How do you go about setting up a store’s credit/debit card system?

The future manager of a computer support helpdesk doesn’t have to know how to unlock a store’s computer that has only a cursor on the screen. He or she has over 40 helpdesk personnel and supervisors who can address that problem for them.

It is not the president of the United States’ job to know who the world leaders are. He has advisors and researchers who do that for him.

It’s a good bet Hiller himself didn’t know who the leaders of those four countries were before he asked Bush. Chances are he had to look them up in a magazine or previous articles. If so, does that mean he doesn’t deserve to be a reporter? Does the fact Bush didn’t know the answers mean he can’t run the country? Of course not.

“I know what I can do,” Bush said in an interview with Time magazine Nov. 15, 1999. “I’ve never held myself out to be any great genius, but I’m plenty smart. And I’ve got good common sense and good instincts. And that’s what people want in their leader.”

That suits me just fine. I am more comfortable with Bush’s statement than I am that Democratic Vice President and presidential nominee Al Gore knew the answers to all four quiz questions.

For the record, those of you just dying to know the other three answers to Hiller’s questions, the president of Chechnya is Aslan Maskhadov. The prime minister of India is Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the general in charge of Pakistan is Pervaiz Musharraf.

Then again, how many of you reading this blog really want to know the answers to those questions? No one? Not one of you out there really gives a rat’s behind.

That’s how pointless the quiz Gov. Bush took was.

The only ones who gave a damn about it and made a big deal out of nothing was the liberal press.

©1/10/2000