George McGovern rebuts TIME's Joe Klein on Afghanistan.

Former ROLLING STONE and NEW YORK writer/TIME columnist Joe Klein apparently has been drinking White House Kool-Aid re the long-running war in Afghanistan. Former Presidential candidate/war veteran George McGovern has a different opinion: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-mcgovern/a-response-to-joe-klein_b_398588.html

A brief summary of the decade in Los Angeles poetry.

In 2000, poetry in L.A. had room for just about everyone who wanted to participate.

As 2010 approaches, the remaining "scene" tends to have both official and unofficial quality controls in terms of the "prestige" readings. With the decline of "independent" bookstores and

coffeehouses, there are fewer "informal" readings. And even some of the remaining coffeehouse readings are now run by hosts that want to import gravitas more than nurture a viable writing community.

Re my current feelings: I'm reminded of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH's scenes where people, after being inside Malkovich's mind, find themselves dumped out alongside a New Jersey expressway.

Brittany Murphy and the Hollywood Beauty Myth.

After being surprised at Brittany Murphy's too-young death at 32, I was further saddened by a lazy/dumb/unfunny SNL WEEKEND UPDATE bit where Abby Elliott impersonated Murphy (recently fired from a film shooting in Puerto Rico) as a possibly-druggie ditz; apparently, the bit aired in the past week or two. I'm not linking to it here.

Murphy (also known for regular voiceover work on Mike Judge's KING OF THE HILL) had two breakout roles with CLUELESS and GIRL, INTERRUPTED in the mid-to-late 90s. Then, she resurfaced in the first half of the 2000s as a thin, blonde meant-to-be-supersexy waif type--appealing to both Hollywood majordomos and adolescent males of all ages who believed that Kate Winslet was too "fat."

After SIN CITY, Murphy's films got smaller (I remember seeing one direct-to-DVD title, THE RAMEN GIRL, at my local Target store). But she did a lot of work recently, and some of her now-posthumous unreleased films will likely show up next year.

I don't know the exact cause of Murphy's death--but it's safe to say that the Industry get-thin-get-Botoxed-get-Collagened-or-we-won't-hire-you ethos didn't help her at all.

This time, Kenneth Turan gives a more-or-less good review to a James Cameron movie.

Not sure how many people remember the....let's call it titanic...... anger that James Cameron displayed in a letter to the LOS ANGELES TIMES in early 1998 because chief film critic Kenneth Turan gave a harsh review to Cameron's then hugely-popular and now semi-forgotten film about two young lovers on a doomed ocean liner. Feel free to Google Turan's original review and Cameron's response.

Now, here's a tinyURL link to Turan's review of Cameron's AVATAR: http://shar.es/aDAiQ

Feel even more free to judge for yourself whether Turan's opinion (partially a sense of awe over AVATAR's technical achievements) is genuine or not this time around.

For my part, I was surprised that Turan didn't recuse himself and give second-chair Betsy Sharkey the assignment--or even offer it to now-freelance Kevin "I like just about everything" Thomas.

My choices for People of the Year.

Purely subjective choices for People of the Year:

1. Joe Lieberman--the man who gives aid and comfort to Republicans,

conservative Democrats and the health insurance lobbyists who love them.

2. Stanley McChrystal--this generation's version of the general

who once croaked "old soldiers never die, they just fade away"

and prompted President Harry Truman to remove him for defiance

regarding the Korean War; President Obama, facing a similar situation

with Afghanistan, meekly rolled over instead.

3. Lloyd Blankfein--head of Goldman Sachs, the bank

which apparently keeps Gordon Gekko's motto "greed works"

to heart.

4. Jeff Zucker--the man who has made NBC what it isn't today.

5. Oprah Winfrey--the talk-show megamogul who's moving from

syndication to ruler of her own cable network (acronym OWN)

6. Tiger Woods--from all the recent chatter, one would think

that he's the first-ever sports celeb to ever have affairs. Now

the media has shifted to wondering how much endorsement

money he stands to lose.

Michael Moriarty--like Jon Voight before him--turns Right.

It's a sort of ritual for certain aging male celebrities to publicly retreat into social and/or poltical conservatism. Steve Allen, in his last years, became a cranky crusader against what he considered "filth" in entertainment. The late Ron Silver (once involved with the left-to-moderate Creative Coalition) became vocal about his rightist beliefs after 9/11. Jon Voight, who won an Oscar for playing an anti-Vietnam War paraplegic (inspired by Ron Kovic) in COMING HOME, now can be found opnionating on Fox News. And don't get me started on former comedian Dennis Miller.

Michael Moriarty has now come to the proverbial fork in the road--and has turned Right. Here are links to an interview and a Moriarty-penned article for Andrew Breitbart's showbiz-liberalism-bashing site BIG HOLLYWOOD.

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aliciacolon/2009/11/25/interview-michael-moriarty-on-obama-palin-nbc-beck-and-gutfeld/
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmoriarty/2009/12/09/dead-end-america/

Perplexing events to ponder as it rains outside.

1. John McCain persists in trying to be a frontperson for a Republican Party which has little use for him.
2. Fox gave Carrie Underwood TWO HOURS of airtime for a holiday special.

Feel free to contribute any current events--great or small--you find perplexing in the comments below.

Tiger Woods--when private becomes public.

Awhile back (think it might have been on ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT), Kevin Bacon said something like: "My private life is none of America's business."

But then again, he's merely a well-paid actor and not a supremely-well-paid, taught-by-dad-to-be-golf-machine-more-than-actual-person athlete like Tiger Woods.

It looks like Tiger successfully put a lid on conjecture about what exactly happened re the late-night SUV accident.

But the leak of a voicemail message allegedly by Tiger to one of his alleged mistresses (of the "my wife's looking for evidence I'm seeing other people" variety) seems to have prompted little more than a crisis-management-shaped "apology" on the Tiger Woods website.

It may be time for Tiger to speak actual human sentences instead of save-my-commercial-endorsements-make-it-go-away-euphemisms; i.e. be honest with his fans in order to redirect public attention towards more pertinent matters (i.e. the escalation of the Afghanistan War).

Jay Leno needs ratings. Perhaps it's time for Tiger to endure Jay hauling out his old "What the hell were you thinking?" line once more. [Rumors are that Tiger will do the mea culpa thing for Oprah.]

[UPDATE: 12/9/09--Here's an article about Tiger's alleged marriage counseling: http://www.sphere.com/nation/article/tiger-woods-tries-intensive-therapy-to-save-marriage/19269773]