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A best picture race for an Oscar and the surrounding hoodeleyap

It’s the day after the primary elections here in Texas. I hope everybody’s candidate won. Think about that for a minute.

These days I don’t make it to the movies much anymore. I don’t know why. But I have been following all the buzz about a nominee for Best Picture at the Academy Awards this week. Of course, there is always some buzz surrounding the coveted of the coveted Oscars. It’s office politics, which I don’t like at all. So I sure as hell don’t like the office politics of the Oscars. This year in particular it’s disgusting — sort of — and I’ll tell you why if you don’t go off in a huff and leave what you are reading. Don’t worry, I’ll get there soon. Soon enough.

Most of the hoodeleyap (Hey, that’s a good word I just made up! It’s pronounced “WHO-del-e-yap,” only faster and means bodougleypot. “BO-doo-gul-e-pot”) concerning the Oscar for best director is over the 2/3rd’s computer-generated Avatar directed by James Cameron and Hurt Locker, which is directed by Cameron’s ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow.

Certainly, the media has made much of possible Oscars going to one of a divorced, but friendly, ex-couple who directed these films. Also, if Bigelow wins she will be the first woman to win the hideous-looking gold statuette for directing. Other sideshows to this story have likewise appeared to build up the hype for the Oscars and their potential winners:

  • While Hurt Locker — a story about an explosives demolition unit on a tour of duty in Iraq — has received critical acclaim the film also has drawn the ire of some Iraq veterans and active duty soldiers. They say the thriller doesn’t realistically portray soldiers doing their job, that it makes troops seem reckless and has other less-than-authentic aspects. This is even though Defense Secretary Robert Gates liked and recommended the movie while the military withdrew its assistance in the film in 2007 for unflattering portrayals of soldiers. Uh, you want reality? Go watch C-SPAN.
  • Yesterday Nicolas Chartier, one of the Hurt Locker‘s producers, was barred from the Oscar presentations for e-mailing messages to Academy members that ask for their votes for the film. No tux and red carpet for you, Mr. Chartier!
  • Today an Army master sergeant and bomb expert filed a suit against the film’s screenwriter, who is also one of the producers, for exploiting the sergeant’s service. The soldier claims the film is based on his experiences and that he coined the term “Hurt Locker.” Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he halfway did.

Well, like “they” say, no publicity is bad publicity. Or maybe it is. But it’s Oscar time! Break out the 40-year-old single malt and the good silverware! That’s not in my case of course, and I most likely, more than most likely won’t be watching the Oscars. But I have to admit, I would like to see the movie, the Hurt Locker.

It’s another one of those far-off Hollywood happenings — the aforementioned hoodeleyap — that don’t really mean anything or matter in the least to the average beer-swilling and gun-toting American who washes up once a week and goes to the picture show. But I suppose all the hype makes us want to watch the car wrecks on the big screen which will, in this case, be big improvised explosive devices that go “boom.”

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Afghanistan and the eye of the Tiger, oh my

 Today I have a few words — figuratively speaking — on subjects of which I could discuss with thousands of words. However, I don’t want that and if you read this blog, you surely don’t want that.

 First off, Afghanistan and the upshot of President Obama ordering 30,000 additional troops into whatever it is we are fighting over there.

 Flip a coin. Heads, you approve of the additional troops. Tails, you disapprove. That is how I look at the announcement of additional forces. I initially thought we should have gone into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Today, I’m not so sure. The only thing I am sure of is that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq. That war is what one might call unjust, not to mention illegal. I haven’t heard it called “Bush’s Folly” or “Shrub’s Folly,” but it should go down in history that way.

 If the search and destroy mission for Osama bin Laden and gang should  not have been a federal criminal investigation — with help from the military and CIA — many of the troops and material poured into Iraq (not to mention the billions of dollars) could have went to Afghanistan.

 I guess the American in me believes that we should find some kind of victory both in Iraq and Afghanistan and leave. We need to figure out what it is we are there to do because I am not sure what our goals are now in those countries.

 As for Obama sending more trooops to augment the more than 70,000 already there — and the allies sending 5,000 more to help the almost 40,000 NATO and other foreign forces in Afghanistan — I say: “Let’s see if it works out.” He has offered a timetable, albeit a seemingly short one.  So if the situation doesn’t improve by whenever it is Obama wants a withdrawal to begin, then we get mad and jump up and down and say: “Bad Obama. Bad, bad Obama.” This seems as good as anything else I can imagine.

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 Next subject. Le Tigre. El Tigre.  Ang Tigre. The Tiger.

 Tiger, Tiger, Tiger.

 Why is the mainstream media doing stories on what was, initially, a rather odd car crash involving Tiger Woods?  Do viewers and readers of the media have such uninteresting lives that they MUST know the details of all the indiscretions of this sports (sports?) star? I have the most uninteresting life  imaginable, at least at the moment, and I don’t care about Tiger Woods” intimate moments. Let me be a bit more specific. I DON’T GIVE A RAT’S RECTUM ABOUT THE TIGER WOODS SCANDAL.

 Tiger Woods has not been elected to greatest golfer in the world or highest-paid sports star in the world. We do not own Tiger Woods. He has no obligation to tell the public zip. Sure, every star of every kind blames the media when things start to go South. But if anyone has a case against the media, this time it is Tiger Woods.

 It makes me both angry and sad to see great newspaper and broadcasting outlets report the latest on this scandal. Why don’t they report something really earth-shaking, like this?