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A rainy afternoon in a fern-carpeted Cascade forest. A black slug slides across a boulder cusioned with brilliant green moss. Why do I think I’ll remember that moment from Kelly Reichart’s “Old Joy” for a long, long time? It doesn’t have anything to do with furthering the story, about two old friends who haven’t seen each other for a while and take an overnight trip to a hot springs in the mountains near Portland, Oregon. It’s just… right. The right image in the right place at the right time. Necessary. Essential.

Very nice. I like “Borat” very much. I think it is, as everybody has been saying, the funniest movie in years. And not because it is dumb (although it’s very dumb), but because it is smart (and it is very smart). The full title is “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” Every single word in that title (including “for” and both “of’s”) is, in its context, really funny. If you have to ask why, then you probably won’t understand why “Borat” is funny, either. But that doesn’t seem likely.

Every family has its stories, the ones they tell and the ones they don’t. Some are repeated regularly at clan gatherings until they assume the shape of myth. Certain details are amplified or embellished, while others fall away with disuse, but with time the contours of the stories themselves achieve a well-worn solidity. They, along with the unspoken assumptions that support them, become the official version of the family’s history. They give everybody a sense of where they fit in the narrative structure, and they help us forget about the other stories that are stashed unacknowledged in the closets or the cellar or in the gaps between the walls.

James Dobson's Focus on the Family released this statement today about Ted Haggard:

“All of us at Focus on the Family are heartsick over the allegation, not yet confirmed, that Ted has had a private life with a homosexual for several years. We will await the outcome of this story, but the possibility that an illicit relationship has occurred is alarming to us and to millions of others.

“Ted has been my close friend and colleague for many years. He has been used mightily to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Colorado Springs and around the world. He will continue to be my friend, even if the worst allegations prove accurate. Nevertheless, sexual sin, whether homosexual or heterosexual, has serious consequences, and we are extremely concerned for Ted, his family and his church.

“We ask that the Focus on the Family constituency and Christians everywhere pray for Ted and his loved ones. Our hearts go out to all of them. Perhaps the allegations are false and the circumstances are not as we have heard. Either way, the situation has grave implications for the Cause of Christ, and we ask for the Lord’s guidance and blessings in the days ahead.”

President Bush is spending the night in Colorado. Veep Dick Cheney rallied the troops here this afternoon and campaigned for Republican Doug Lamborn, who even the Republicans don't like and who is running neck and neck with Democrat Jay Fawcett in the heavily Republican district that includes Colorado Springs, home to the evangelical right.

Bush is headed to Greeley to campaign for the mother of the anti-gay marriage amendment, Marilyn Musgrave.

He may be too late. The latest poll shows Musgrave and her Democratic opponent, Angie Paccione, in a dead heat.

For Pastor Haggard:

Son of a Preacher Man (Dusty Springfield, 1999)

For Mike Jones:

Can I get a Witness? (Dusty Springfield, 1964)

Also entertaining, if a bit cruel, Wonkette on Mrs. Ted Haggard.

Michigan voters will decide on Tuesday whether to ban affirmative action in university admissions.

Newsweek reporter Ellis Cose has completed a report Killing Affirmative Action (pdf) for the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism. The school's site also provides this helpful list of links on the topic.

Towards the end of the lengthy report, Cose writes:

Just as time alone will not solve America’s race-related problems, neither will affirmative action. The fundamental problem with (and the dilemma of) affirmative action is that it was never meant to carry the weight society has thrown on its shoulders. It was never meant to rescue the poor. It was never supposed to enlighten the illiterate, make the sick well, or feed the hungry. It was not meant to make up for the inadequacies of a bad K through 12 education; or, for that matter, to make up for the deficiencies that develop well before children even get to kindergarten.

It began as a modest attempt to give a bit of a boost to a handful of folks from a race of people who had been unfairly held back for centuries. But because we, as a nation, lacked the will or knowledge to solve the big problems, we charged affirmative action with doing it all. And it morphed into something both grand (in terms of public perception) and small (in terms of its actual impact), making it vulnerable not only to criticism of its not being effective, but also of its being too onerous and of violating the very spirit of the equal treatment it is supposed to remedy or promote.

The choice society faces is not about ending affirmative action — at some point, as both its critics and defenders agree, the affirmative action tugboat will run out of steam. The question is whether, before that happens, society will find the will and resources to vanquish the problems that gave rise to it in the first place. No child chooses to be born into poverty with parents who are semi-literate or to live in neighborhoods where the schools are little more than holding pens, where dropping out is more common than graduating. No child chooses to be told, virtually from the moment of consciousness, that achievement is not an option.

I think the question is what do we do about affirmative action programs now, given our imperfect society and a government that has failed to adequately fund early childhood education and other programs that would give every child an equal chance to succeed.

I say we keep the programs in place for university admissions until the underlying problems are resolved. Only then will we not need them anymore.

Even President Bush's neo-con advisors now say the mess in Iraq is all his fault.

As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.

Digg continues to grow, claiming 20 million visitors per month and an increasing amount of mainstream attention. But as traffic to Digg has grown, the incentive to “game” the site to get stories to the home page has also increased. Digg fights the abuse by using a number of weapons (deleting offending accounts, changing the […]

Tony has a vacation home in Spain now, with a veranda and a swimming pool. He’s seen some hard times, but at 49, he is basking in contentment. We see him in the pool, tanned, splashing with his family.

Barry Bonds and the Giants have begun talks about a new contract that would keep the slugger in San Francisco for 2007.

F34nor writes to mention a CBS news article about the depopulation of ocean species. According to a study by a scientist in Halifax, Nova Scotia and assisted by research from all around the world, the world’s oceans will be emptied of large lifeforms by 2048. From the record: “Already, 29% of edible fish and seafood species have declined by 90% — a drop that means the collapse of these fisheries. But the issue isn’t just having seafood on our plates. Ocean species filter toxins from the water. They protect shorelines. And they reduce the risks of algae blooms such as the red tide. ‘A large and increasing proportion of our population lives close to the coast; thus the loss of services such as flood control and waste detoxification can have disastrous consequences,’ Worm and colleagues say.”