A recent poll showed that 71% of Republicans would likely vote for Palin if she ran for president in 2012.

I know, we're supposed to be a nation that respects different viewpoints even when we disagree, but, holy crap. That is all kinds of stupid. And depressing.

Traditionally conservative New Hampshire today became the sixth state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, after a bill was enacted by both the state House and Senate and then signed by Governor John Lynch.

"Today we're standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear they will receive the same rights, responsibilities and respect under New Hampshire law," Lynch said before signing the bill at about 5:20 p.m.

Lynch said it was a New Hampshire tradition "to come down on the side of individual liberties and protections and that tradition continues today."

New Hampshire's legislature approved Gay Marriage, and the Governor is expected to sign it today. How about that; my state is more progressive than NY or CA. Huh. Maine, CT, Mass, Vermont, and now (hopefully) NH--New England turns out to be the center of progressive thought. Who'd have thought?

Finished up Season 1 of Supernatural last night, two episodes to go in Season 1 of the Wire.

We'll definitely be watching S2 of the Wire. Good writing and acting on that show, even if I'm not generally interested in plain old cop procedural shows.

Supernatural is like the slip side of the coin. Mediocre writing and acting can make me say "eh" about a show even if I'm predisposed to like the subject matter.

Can anyone tell me, does Supernatural get better in S2? It got a bit better at the end of S1--does that upswing continue?

So, I'm going to see this on the second to last day, at the Red Bull Theater, but going alone, as my usual suspects are all MIA (or just plain punks). There are still some great seats left for the 2 PM Saturday performance--that's the one I'm going to. I'm sitting in the damned front row, in the premium section. Tickets aren't cheap at $75 bucks, but this is the year of the 17th century for me, so I figured I'd better go. Anyhow, if anyone wants to join me, cool. I'm going to be in seat A8.

Thanks to everyone who posted about this play, and wrote to tell me it was on. I'm really excited to see it.

Finished Thomas Heywood's Fair Maid of the West or A Girl Worth Gold on Saturday. This is a fun, silly play with lots of duels, disguises, sea battles, a breeches part, the King of Fez, etc. It must be incredibly exciting to see on stage--my mom saw it with Sean Bean in it, and said it was the most fun she ever had at the theater. My only complaint is that it seems extremely short--there's just not enough of the sorts of things that make breeches-part plays so fun--seems like it could be over in an hour or so. If I was going to stage it, I'd pad out the adventure sections, for sure.

On the other hand, I've only read part 1; that's all that my collection of Heywood plays includes. Apparently part 2 is far less fun. Bess Bridges (the titular character) doesn't have much to do--she's more passive than she is in this earlier section. I'll definitely read Part 2 when I get a chance, but I'm in no great hurry. It's not so terrible that I'm not reading them together; contemporary audiences had to wait as much as 30 years for Heywood to get to the second part. Maybe he decided, like I did, that the first Part felt a little skimpy on its own.

This, like the last play I read, The Plain Dealer, is another "virtue tested" play, where a woman's suitor consciously puts her in a position of temptation to see if she can remain loyal to him. It's far less mean spirited here than in The Plain Dealer. I guess that's partly a function of the changing tastes--the ebullience of the Elizabethan era (Fair Maid was performed as early as 1597-1603--Queen Elizabeth was probably still alive) versus the cynicism of the Restoration (The Plain Dealer was first performed in 1676). I vastly prefer Fair Maid, though it's hard to deny that The Plain Dealer is in many ways more sophisticated, if less successful.

There's a new Doctor Who in town. Or, there will be. Hopefully he'll look less dorky by the time they start making new episodes in 2010. Maybe getting rid of his Thompson Twins haircut will help. He seems awfully young: 24!

More cranky critiques on things that everyone else seems to have liked.

The top story on Yahoo (and elsewhere) is indignation that The Dark Knight didn't get more Golden Globe nominations, with a big picture of Heath Ledger, the only nominee from that movie.

Really?

I guess I may have a different viewpoint than most. Having not seen Dark Knight until just recently, I managed to avoid the Heath-steria that was in full swing when the movie came out. After K and I watched it, we turned to each and said: "Seriously? All that hype for this?" I mean, it was okay, and Heath was good, but he didn't deliver a ground-breaking virtuoso performance, in my opinion. I never felt particularly menaced by Ledger's Joker, and I just don't think an annoying accent and lots of lip licking makes for a timeless performance.

Don't get me wrong, I thought he was fine, good, interesting. And I haven't seen so many other movies this year, so I can't say he doesn't even deserve the nomination. But I can say that his performance didn't deserve the amount of fawning praise he got, and continues to get. It's sad he died and all, but that's not really related to his performance. Way too many people are confusing the art and their sadness for the artist here, in my opinion.

But, fine--like I said, he might genuinely deserve the nomination: I haven't seen enough movies to know if this performance was good enough to merit it. But the movie itself, I feel confident in saying, doesn't deserve any nominations, unless there were a "Best Motion Picture, Big, Slow, and Ponderous" category. The writing just wasn't all that good. The anarchy/nihilism thing was soooo superficial, and I was amazed at how little we actually learned about the Joker in such a long, long, long movie.

The whole underlying pompous, preachy current of the movie that the people would save themselves and that Batman would be whatever symbol they needed him to be was pretty embarrassing. That's the sort of stuff that blowhard critics of comics are supposed to say: when comic-book movies themselves actually say them for you, you know they've crossed the dreaded self-importance line. It's like having Kane say on his deathbed, "Where is Rosebud, the symbol of my lost youth and innocence?" I felt bad for the actors when they had to say those lines.

The whole "vigilantes are bad, but we need them in these dark times" theme was weak, too, for similar reasons. It's handled much more convincingly (and much less self-importantly) in 24 every damned week, and that show is hardly a model of Deep Thoughtfulness. At least Jack never has to look into the camera and explain the over-arching themes to the audience. I mean, he certainly says, "I'll do whatever I have to, break whatever laws I have to, and accept whatever consequences come of it," but he doesn't talk about the symbolism of his own actions and their deeper meaning, and the symbol he represents, and the deeper need for blah, blah blah. He just does shit, and we get to decide what it means. I'm not saying that As a result, we have an exciting show with lots of action that makes us talk about whether or not what he does is justified--all in a one-hour show, once a week.

The Dark Knight seems to have gone for the reverse strategy: take two or three years to make an action movie that lasts for 12 hours and is filled with pontification about the meaning of the not particularly gripping action. There's really no need to think or talk about the meaning of the movie, because the main character actually tells you how to interpret his actions. Boo! Did the Nolans think people were too stupid to get their very, very obvious contrast between Dent and Batman? How sad for them--or for us, if it's true.

In the end, I liked The Dark Knight okay, but I wished that I hadn't bought into the hype to the point that I actually bought the blu-ray at one of those stores that sell the discs weeks early. I should have waited and rented it. I would have been less resentful of the extent to which people oversold this bloated blockbuster. And I'd be $35 dollars richer.

By way of the excellent CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Behind the Lines daily newsletter:

Anti-terror law requires God be acknowledged
By John Cheves

Under state law, God is Kentucky's first line of defense against terrorism.

The 2006 law organizing the state Office of Homeland Security lists its initial duty as "stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God's benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, tucked the God provision into Homeland Security legislation as a floor amendment that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two years ago.

As amended, Homeland Security's religious duties now come before all else, including its distribution of millions of dollars in federal grants and its analysis of possible threats.( Can this really be legal? Click here to read more nonsense. )

I like this take on the story:

Invisible Sky Wizards Don't Do Homeland Security

The Kentucky General Assembly thinks our best protection from terrorist attacks, industrial accidents and natural disasters is - wait for it - an invisible wizard who lives in the sky.

Click to read the rest of this short post at Watching Those We Choose.

Holy Cow. This past was my 13th wedding anniversary. That's a long time.

So, we're thinking of going out this Saturday, and we probably oughta make reservations.

So, where should we go? I'm looking for suggestions from the friendlist for a cool restaurant in NYC. Where would you go? I realize it's a bit late to be making the reservations...don't worry, I'm not in trouble--we're pretty casual about this kind of thing. If we can't get in this weekend, we'll go next week.

So, where should we go?