Arnie Grape and I 

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is one of my favorite films.

Of all time!

The cast is beyond perfect.

Led by Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis and Leonardo Di Caprio, the love story that is Gilbert Grape puts its director, Lasse Halstrom, at the very top of my heroic list. A personal pantheon that only includes one other director: Elia Kazan.

Yes, for me Halstrom’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? is almost the equal of On The Waterfront.

Almost.

Why?

The two scripts, the directors and, above all, the actors convey, with piercing depth, the courage it takes to love unconditionally.

In Gilbert Grapes’ case, it is the hero’s ultimately unconditional love for his family and his brother Arnie’s love for life itself.

Because my experience of family was the antithesis of Gilbert Grape’s, I don’t sympathize with the Depp character as I have increasingly identified with Marlon’s Brando’s Terry Malloy. In On The Waterfront we ultimately see the hero’s unconditional love of not family or tribe but of truth. Despite the union thugs and their increasingly dangerous threats, Terry Malloy must risk his life to tell the truth.

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So Freakanomics tweeted about a research paper linking budget cuts to social unrest in Europe.

It claimed, “Once you cut expenditure by more than 2% of GDP, instability increases rapidly … especially in terms of riots and demonstrations.”

The conclusion: governments fear austerity programs for this reaon.

Meaning, riots. Bloodshed. looting. And so on.

Which is a sad and scary point: what protects bloated government and entitlement is a visceral fear that if you take candy from a baby, that baby will hang you in the square.

I suppose that’s one reason to avoid cutting programs, if you’re a coward.

Bottom line: you cannot be held hostage by fear of unrest. You must always do the right thing, no matter the risk. For in a free country, the expectation should be for civility at all costs.

What guarantees that civility? Punishment? Fear of death?

Maybe.

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So as rioting in London spreads like plaque on rotted teeth, there’s something more toxic than the violence going on.

It’s some of the reaction to it – which stinks of justification.

Says one anarchist, while punks steal chocolate: “This is the uprising of the working class. We’re redistributing the wealth.”

Yep – free sweets – that’s a revolution.

I’m sure those folks in Syria are inspired.

I tell you – I’d hate to be a shopkeeper, knowing that the man looting the store is viewed more romantically than the man stocking the shelves.

But you can find this idiocy anywhere: academia, TV, movies, music… the belief that despicable behavior is okay if you dress it up as a response to “the man.”

But what’s worse is the way we now respond to this crap.

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So, it’s hard to judge this downgrade, because it’s like getting a report card from a drunk teacher.

I mean – If these agencies were so smart, why didn’t they do it sooner?

As Dana Vachon tweeted to me, Where were these “credit agencies” during the housing bubble?

My guess is, hot tubbing.

Can’t blame them. Hot tubbing is fun.

Which means the downgrade was not a logical reaction, but a scolding meant to make everyone feel bad.

Now, irrelevant ninnies like John Kerry are blaming the Tea Party.

But how can you blame them- when they got nothing they wanted?

The debt ceiling debate culminated in the highest debt ceiling bump ever. The spending cuts were like a fat guy forgoing the sprinkles on his half gallon of Chunky Monkey – and calling it a diet.

But I can see why the Tea Party is getting hammered on this.

No one represents them – for they are them.

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Greg goes to a concert and talks about how mosh pits always have one jerk…and he may have been one of them. Due to the concert, Greg missed Franklin and Bash and worries that he let Breckin Meyer down.

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Tonight:

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“I’ve decided to have guns in the house.”

Those were the simple words of Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell, after fending off an armed intruder in his house.

His wife, daughter and grandson were about to hit the sack late Saturday, when the thug broke in, attacking his daughter.

The wily 77 year old tried to stop him, but it was Boswell’s grandson’s loaded shotgun that caused the punk to flee in the opposite direction.

Yep, if there’s one thing you can learn from a shotgun: you never run at one.

Now, publicizing tales like these do nothing but good, for they remind the common thug of a key life or death question: what house would you rob, if you could?

One in which the owner is armed, or not?

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Tonight:

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And so the summer of love has become a winter with hobos. 

I speak of Berkeley, where a spring forum was held by the chamber of commerce to discuss a sit-lie ordinance – which would ban sitting or lying on sidewalks within commercial districts during work hours. 

It was based on a similar ordinance in San Francisco – but word got out, protests erupted, and everyone ran scared. 

See, the ordinance would have cleared the streets of dirtbags like me who clog sidewalks with aggressive panhandling. 

But now, because protests scared off it’s proponents, fearful students will now flock to safer places, rather than risk getting assaulted by meth-heads. 

And so here’s what happens when tolerance triumphs over safety. The end result is filth and lawlessness. 

And the rest of us flee. 

A survey of 1800 students found that half avoid downtown Berkeley because its dirty and dangerous. And women are especially fearful – perhaps because some creepy dudes want more than change. 

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Ed. Note: Greg’s piece was written before Kunis killed the rumor (see below) that she might back out of Sgt. Scott Moore’s invitation. 

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So I love Mila Kunis for two very good reasons.

First off: she accepted the invitation by a young soldier to attend the Marines Ball – and I hope she still plans on going.

But even more, I love her for what she said in a recent GQ interview, while promoting her new flick, called “Friends With Benefits.”

The interviewer asked her if she’d ever been in one of those relationships, herself.

She answered, quote:

Oy. I haven’t, but I can give you my stance on it: It’s like communism-good in theory, in execution it fails. Friends of mine have done it, and it never ends well. Why do people put themselves through that torture?

And so, in just a few sentences, Kunis proved she’s smarter than just about every major movie star combined.

She was able to deflate one common cultural assumption propagated by Hollywood – that casual sex is harmless – while also dismissing a deadly ideology that garners glowing depictions on big screens everywhere.

That puts her head and shoulders above any of the more common Hollywood intellectuals – the type of clowns you see parading their Chomsky books at the local Starbucks.

(I’m talking to you Matt Damon).

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Tonight’s show: 

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So this debt ceiling thing is confusing the hell out of me.

For one, every President seems to really like it.

Case in point – Bush wanted it raised too.

But do you know who was against it then? Obama.

Because, he wasn’t President yet.

Now he is.

Suddenly raising the debt ceiling is paramount.

So to me, the President is like your wife, and the debt ceiling is a credit card. You can’t blame her for loving it.

But it’s time to cut that card in half. We need to say, “Honey, I love you – but hand it over. We’ll live.”

The point is, raising the debt ceiling is easy, because it’s easy!

In the past five years I put on the weight of your average sized child, because I kept raising my “weight ceiling.”

I didn’t die or anything, although over time, my wife found me repulsive.

Still does, actually.

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So, on Tuesday, Glenn Beck talked about how he and his family were harassed while catching an outdoor movie in Manhattan’s Bryant Park.

Now, Glenn gets upset, a lot.

So you never know how much is theater.

But then Lindsey Piscatell wrote a letter, saying she was seated behind him.

Some excerpts.

…while the crowd was certainly not *thrilled* that he had shown up, his family was left completely alone, and for the most part, he was too. Conversely, it was his security detail…that seemed to be unnecessarily prickly with the crowd, scolding myself and my friends for acrobatics and other harmless activities…

Acrobatics?

Everyone does that before a movie, right?

She goes on:

It was my friend that spilled the… wine…and I can assure you that it was a complete accident. A happy one, to be sure, but nonetheless a complete and utter accident. As soon as the wine spilled …apologies were made and my friends pretty much scrambled to give … napkins..”.

Of course.

So I contacted this Lindsey person, via email to follow up, but she never got back to me.

I wanted to ask her why, in her letter, she doesn’t mention her tweet.

You know – the one where she wrote “F*cking a**hole glen beck is sitting next to me….get the f*ck out of my city.”

And what of the tweet from a friend, suggesting Lindsey spill wine on Beck, “accidentally.” (more…)

So a Marine reservist, whose odd behavior last week set off a scare at the Pentagon, has now been charged in shootings targeting military buildings that occurred last year.

His name is Yonathan Melaku, and he was originally picked up while lurking inside Arlington National Cemetery.

(he was probably just planting flowers)

Anyway, for peaceful reasons i’m sure- he was carrying spent shell casings, some ammonium nitrate and a notebook containing stuff about Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

But I imagine that was just fan fiction.

[My notebooks contain reams of sketches i've made of Clive Owen. I'd show them to you, but they're personal.]

Anyway, now Feds are charging him with a bunch of stuff. But I’ve read this story around the web, and so far the only spot where his religion was noted, was on some blogs – and FNC.

Because, as you know, he’s a militant Christian.

Just kidding: he’s Muslim.

And I confess, we’re a bunch of Islamophobes for bringing it up.

And yet we have another example, of willful blindness – born out of political correctness and the fear of being labeled a bigot.

This kind of terror-based incident has happened before, also involving our military.

At Ford Hood, tragically.

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So last weekend Jon Stewart was interviewed by Chris Wallace on FNC.

It was a feisty tussle, all about point of view.

Stewart’s claim: Fox News’ perspective is ideologically based, following a predetermined right-wing blueprint.

As for any lefty bias at other networks, that’s a product of sensationalism, or laziness.

As for Jon’s bias, he says, it’s purely comedic. So when he links Palin to herpes, that’s coming from a “funny” place, not a political one.

And when he dons a black accent to mock Herman Cain – that’s because comics do funny voices, even funny black voices.

After all, you’ve seen his fantastic impression of Obama.

Right?

Anyway, Stewart doesn’t need another person to say he’s funny, because he knows that.

But someone needs to tell him he’s lying. Not to Wallace, but to himself.

He’s ideologically driven, and kind of admits that, accidentally – when he says he’s also been guilty of smearing the tea party.

Well done on that.

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So Republicans are desperately trying to figure out how to beat Obama.

You’d think it’d be easy:

Look at the economy.

It’s scarier than Kathy Griffin’s discarded spanx: Dreadful unemployment, a dying housing market, a crappy dollar, rising inflation.

It’s all bad news.

But the problem with bad news – people hate it.

I’m reminded of that good friend who wants to tell you that whoever you’re dating – is bad for you.

You don’t want to hear it.

You think, “Wait – I thought you were my friend.”

But he’s like, “Dude, I’m your friend, she’s using you – which is why I’m telling you this. I’m trying to do you a favor.”

The Republican party has to be that close pal, and it needs to tell America it’s time to cut him loose.

But they need to be smart.

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So last week, the Cadbury candy company apologized to model Naomi Campbell.

It seems their ad for Bliss chocolates used the line, “Move over Noami, there’s a new diva in town” – a play on Campbell’s adorable violent streak.

Campbell called the ad racist. So Cadbury blubbered an apology – and Naomi, being the trooper she is, accepted it – while crapping all over the company.

She said, “It is also a shame that it took so long for Cadbury to offer this apology,” and added, “they should avoid causing offense in the first place which is best achieved by having greater diversity.”

Yep – and if there’s anyone you wanna take advice on “causing offense,” it’s this psycho.

In just ten years, the model was accused ten times of assaulting employees – even cops. She’s pleaded guilty to throwing a cell phone at one person, and there are piles of reports of her slapping, kicking and scratching people.

And so, Naomi campbell is indeed a model – of hypocritical outrage.

She’s hurt many people – focusing mainly on the help, who can’t fight back. But thanks to today’s whirling world of phony indignation, she is handed the moral high ground over a chocolate company. Why?

Because she can.

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