| just like old times |

A journalist recently asked Vladimir Putin if a newspaper story about his plan to divorce his wife and marry a younger woman was true. An annoyed Putin said no. Later that same day, the offending newspaper was suspended “for financial reasons.”

This news, along with Garry Kasparov’s arrest and thwarted presidential campaign last year, and the unsolved murders of 14 Russian journalists who were anti-Putin over the last 8 years, not to mention the bizarre poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, all seem to show that the bad old days in Russia have certainly returned. Throw in Putin’s novel concept to give up the presidency (in the name of democracy) but still retain power (in the name of czarist Russian history), and we’ve got a genuine dictator on our hands.

Watch this PBS Frontline video for more disturbing details on present day Russia. I hope I’m not being too stereotypical when I say that no one else has looked or acted more like a real life James Bond villain than our pal Putin. In fact, he bears a striking resemblance to this Bond character.

| was there an ejector seat? |

Speaking of 007: As these depressing photos show, even James Bond (or, in this case, his stunt driver) needs to be more careful when driving a $250,000 Aston Martin in the rain near a cliff overlooking a lake. Luckily, the driver managed to get out before the car went over. (“Ejector seat? You’re joking.”) For reference, here’s a photo of the same car, pre-crash. And if you dig this pricey piece of engineering as much as I do, check out Top Gear’s review.

| veeped off |

This is disappointing. Joe Biden says he has no interest in being Vice-President or Secretary of State under either Clinton or Obama. My only question to Biden, Edwards, and other former candidates who have said the same thing is why did they really run in the first place? One imagines it was not only to be head honcho but also to have a meaningful say in the direction this country takes over the next four years. So even if you can’t be the one behind the Resolute Desk, why wouldn’t you at least accept a high-level position on his or her team?

| expulsion tactics |

Doing my part for science: Expelled. (Explanation here.)

For anyone who doesn’t know, Expelled is a Creationist propaganda film made by Ben Stein. (Yes, that Ben Stein.) What’s hilarious is that in the trailer Stein says he’s “better known as a writer, public speaker, social activist, game show host, [and] speech writer for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.” Now call me silly, but I thought Stein was best known as either Ferris Bueller’s high school teacher or, for later generations, the Clear Eyes guy? (“Wow.”) But I suppose if you were a speech writer for Nixon and freely admit it, you must be suffering from some illusions of grandeur.

Stein seems to be trying to do for Creationism what Al Gore did for Environmentalism—namely twist the facts in his favor and convince everyone that they must repent or the world will come to a fiery end, despite the fact that he is not a scientist and has done no real research himself. I can’t be the only one who sees these similarities. (Note: This topic might make for an intriguing sociology paper if there are any PhD candidates out there. Just give me a heads up in the acknowledgements.) The only question is whether or not Stein will win a Nobel Prize for his efforts. Methinks no.

In a related feature, here’s an amusing story that made the rounds last month from PZ Meyers, who actually appears in the film, trying to attend a screening of Expelled last month and getting kicked out. He also discussed the experience in more depth with Richard Dawkins.

| where the paper at? |

Chuck Klosterman raises an interesting economic question about the $4.2 billion the music industry lost between 1999 and 2006: Where’s the money being spent instead?

| in celebrity news |

It looks like there’s another celebrity sex tape out there, kids. And this time it’s Marilyn Monroe. Wait, what? According to a New York Post article delicately titled “Hardcore Marilyn,” a researcher named Keya Morgan claims to have discovered and then sold for $1.5 million a 16mm film of the late actress performing oral sex on an unidentified, but very lucky, man. (Whoever the buyer is, he must be serious about his adult films. Could this be the most ever spent on a single porn title?)

The obvious big question—if the film does, in fact, exist—is if it’s really Marilyn Monroe. My gut tells me no. For one thing, why all the secrecy around the footage and its sale? I suppose the sensitive nature of the material might make one wary about a big public auction, but then wouldn’t the seller be interested in getting the most for it if it is real? (Though if he was so interested in keeping it private, why sell it at all?) Secondly, and more importantly, how did they determine it was really Monroe? It’s no secret that porn films routinely play on movie titles and adult film stars use names similar to celebrities to make sales. There are also plenty of websites claiming to have sex tapes of nearly everyone who’s ever appeared in a movie. So what’s more likely: Someone shot a graphic film featuring a woman who was the biggest sex symbol of her generation and it’s gone undiscovered and unseen for decades since her death and without any of her many biographers, fans, researchers, or family members discovering it, or it’s a generic porn flick made using a lookalike of a famous celebrity? One big factor in all this has been the FBI files which apparently mention a “French-type” film featuring Monroe. (I don’t suppose they meant New Wave.) In fact, all the FBI files really discuss is an informant who claims to have the film and what he told some agents. So all the information we have comes from one man and now this so-called researcher who claims to have brokered the film’s sale and who’s using the story to promote his own conspiracy-laden film about Monroe’s death. Unfortunately, few in the media have even suggested that, if the film exists, it might not be Monroe and that there’s been no proof. Rather, they’ve given this unknown researcher with no evidence to back up his claim the benefit of the doubt in order to cook up the easy, attention-grabbing headline. (Dan Abrams being one exception.)

For fun, let’s break it down: If we go with the story that has been told, we have some silent, black and white, 16mm footage from the early ‘50s, possibly filmed in a room with poor lighting. We’re not sure if Monroe was aware of the camera (Morgan claims she never looks at the lens), but the male seems to have known about it since he’s careful to keep his face out of the shot. Given the position Monroe would have to be in while performing said act, and in order to keep the camera out of her view yet remain in focus if she was unaware of it, would anyone watching the film be able to tell it was actually Monroe—especially if she never faces the camera? How would they know it’s not Mamie Van Doren instead? If the film truly exists, only two possibilities remain: Either it is Monroe and it was filmed with her knowledge, which raises the question of just where it came from and how a nameless “informant” was the only one to ever discover it. Or it’s simply a lookalike in a forgotten ‘50s porn. If this researcher and the collector who purchased the film really wanted to protect Monroe’s legacy as they claim, they would have someone examine the footage to either prove or disprove its authenticity. It’s more than a little amusing that although Morgan didn’t want to let the film out to “protect” Monroe, he will gladly go on television to describe the footage in graphic detail and say it’s definitely the famous star. Hmm. Something just doesn’t jive here.

| hitchens vs. hitchens |

Now that I’ve become reacquainted with Google Reader, I hope this sort of thing won’t slip by my radar again, but I only recently learned that the Hitchens brothers debated each other on April 3rd at the Hauenstein Center in Michigan.

It’s no secret that I’m an admirer of Christopher and his contrarian wit, despite disagreeing with him on several issues. He’s famously had many disagreements with his younger brother Peter over the years and the two refused to speak for a while before coming to a taut reconcilliation. They continue to publically disagree on many topics, certainly to each other’s benefit, and as a result the debate was set up almost like a prize fight—complete with a pre-debate press conference.

Both brothers cautioned, however, that this sort of thing was unlikely to happen often if ever again. As Chris says during the press conference, he doesn’t want to turn it into “a dog and pony show.” The entire debate was streamed online and is now available on YouTube. If you’ve never watched either Hitchens debate, it’s a golden (glove) opportunity to see them both. The debate focuses on two topics sure to keep anyone on speaking terms: politics and religion.

It’s also Chris Hitchens 59th birthday today. So drinks and smokes all around.

| baseball, a return |

Today is opening day at Fenway Park and the day that the Boston Red Sox receive their shiny new championship rings. At the close of the 2006 season, I wrote a piece about baseball titled “Going, Going, Gone!” which detailed my tumultuous relationship with the sport. Well, like any complicated romance, another chapter has been written. I felt in fairness I should give it equal treatment. So here’s the latest installment: “A National Pastime Reconsidered.”

| bringing out the truth |

The Boston Globe recently published an article by Drake Bennett (can you think of a better name for a soap opera star?) titled “House Of Cards” which details some of the factual inaccuracies in Ben Mezrich’s book Bringing Down The House and the new movie based on it, 21.

I recently had the chance to speak with former MIT Blackjack Team member David Irvine (article forthcoming in The Pulse), who admitted that no one on the team was ever physically assaulted for being caught counting cards and that the Micky Rosa character (played by Kevin Spacey in the movie) is actually a composite of a couple of people—none of whom was ever a professor at MIT. Sure, the way the book and the movie lays the story out makes for an entertaining ride, but as Bennett’s article suggests, when you creatively blur the line between fact and fiction and still tout the work as “based on a true story,” there has to be more behind the word “based” than simply an implication. In other words, I could write a story “based” on World War II that says the Nazis won the war, but I’d be justifiably called out for not being exactly truthful. However, should I still be able to say it’s based on a true story? What’s most irritating is that Mezrich says that this sort of thing is common practice for journalists and nonfiction writers. Really? Inventing entire scenes that never happened is the work of a real journalist? Perhaps Mezrich has been getting all of his news from Page Six.

The other thing that bugs me on a personal level about both the book and the movie is that a number of the real life participants in the MIT Blackjack Team were Asian-Americans—including prominent members like John Chang and Jeffrey Ma. Chang was one of the people used to create the Rosa composite and Ma was the inspiration for the book’s main character, Kevin Lewis. Yet in the fictional recreation of the events, they’ve been turned into generic Caucasian characters. While their ethnic backgrounds have no bearing on the story or the events, one has to wonder why they were changed at all. I suppose Mezrich would claim it was to help conceal the actual participants identities, but my guess is that he believed it would help sell the movie rights if all the characters were described like cast members of The O.C.

| mlk day sequel |

Today, people are commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King (at 7:01pm EST to be exact). What this offers, aside from a period of somber reflection, is the opportunity to laugh at some politicians. My favorite by far being poor John McCain. (I say “poor” despite his wife’s beerillions.)

You see, once upon a time (1983), McCain being the out-of-touch old white man he so clearly appears to be, actually voted against making King’s birthday a national holiday. That’s right. Given the opportunity to chalk one up for civil rights, McCain decided, “Nah.” Please do yourself a favor and watch McCain desperately try to explain to a crowd of African-Americans in Memphis that he was wrong to vote against MLK Day. (Notice that he not only repeats the phrase “I myself made long ago” for no reason whatsoever but also says “a day in member of Dr. King.”) What’s even funnier is that McCain claims to have only realized how good King was in 1990(!) and says part of the reason was the fact that he was in Vietnam from 1967-1973. Of course, King gained his national recognition during the bus boycott in the 1950s (when McCain was in his 20s) and then during the civil rights movement of the ‘60s, which began in earnest several years before McCain left for combat duty. But honestly, this old bastard is so out of touch, he freely admits that he only came around to King’s side in the ‘90s! Wow. If he wasn’t a Republican, a statement like that could actually affect his chances of winning.

Maybe McCain was hoping to add another V-J Day to the calendar instead. I realize that Rhode Island lost a fair amount of soldiers at Pearl Harbor and thus remains the only state in the union to proudly celebrate Victory Day every August, but isn’t it time they at least renamed the holiday something a little more respectful to the Japanese people slaughtered in the process of achieving “victory”? I don’t mean to sound like an overly-sensitive hippie, but those last bombing runs in Japan leading up to the atomic bombs dropped over civilian targets were far from a shining moment in American history. Are we truly so unevolved that we need to record our victories on the calendar like some pagan war tribe? How about renaming it “Who Bombs Hawaii? Day” or “You Sunk My Battleship Day”? Maybe it’d be a tad insensitive to the soliders we lost, but so is “Victory Over Japan” insensitive to the hundreds of thousands killed by the Tokyo firebombings and Little Boy and Fat Man. I don’t mean to change the holiday’s name or drop it from the calendar altogether in order to spare someone’s feelings, but I think we’d be much better off remembering, as we do today, the lives we’ve lost instead of the lives we’ve taken.

| king of the hill |

In other political news, Hillary Clinton also gave a pretty poor speech—in a very quiet voice that showed she was being solemn—which centered on how upset she was when she heard King had been killed. She was so upset, in fact, that she stormed into her Wellesley dorm room and threw her book bag across the room. Whoa. I’m touched. She clearly understands the plight. But at least she stayed awake. In fairness, I should also chide Barack Obama for shamelessly quoting King in his speech several times for some cheap applause. He’s better than that. But Obama gets a pass for the kickin’ 40-minute speech he gave on race last month. I can’t think of another politician who would have the nerve to be so insightfully honest. He basically said, “We’re all a little racist and we need to work on it.” Damn. I don’t even have the balls to say that to friends, nevermind millions of potential general election voters.

Speaking of Madame Clinton, it’s high time she went home to Arkansas or New York or wherever her politically-motivated decision to live next will be. As David Brooks so aptly described in his piece “The Long Defeat,” Clinton has about a 5% chance to win the nomination. (Brooks’ piece is a nice addendum to Frank Rich’s earlier op-ed, “The Audacity Of Hopelessness.”) There are rumors once again of Florida and Michigan being counted, but my gut tells me if anything happens—and thankfully it’s a big if—it won’t affect the results. Meaning they’ll split things evenly down the middle. Still, the very notion that she would try to steal the election from Obama makes my blood run cold. Each time she says something like, “There’s no such thing as a pledged delegate” or if someone gets the nomination without Michigan and Florida being counted it can’t be “considered legitimate” I want to drive nails into my ears. Is she really going to try to steal this thing from Obama like Bush did from Gore by contesting, of all state elections, Florida? Is she really that determined to win? And of course the answer is yes. Obama routinely talks about “the old politics” and while it’s a standard campaign line, it’s actually true. He’s out there discussing issues and the Clintons keep trying to bring him down to their level by discussing non-issues like Jeremiah Wright or saying things like Obama’s not a Muslim “as far as I know.” Swell. This is clearly what we need. Has Obama brought up Whitewater or Ken Starr in his campaign speeches? He hasn’t even implied them. Someone on Obama’s team called Clinton a “monster” in a moment of frustration, the reporter decided to print the statement for the sake of sensationalism (while I don’t agree with a lot of what Tucker Carlson says, he did take the British journalist who wrote the “monster” story hilariously to task), and the advisor is fired immediately. Clinton has a member of her campaign make some astonishingly racist comments (Olbermann made a great special comment on it) and Clinton denied that she was even a member of the campaign. And rather than apologize or resign immediately, Farraro insisted everyone else was being racist. Boy, well-to-do white women really do have it hardest of all. While Ferraro’s comments, like Wright’s, should have no direct bearing on electing a candidate, a candidate’s response to the controversy does matter. In a word, Obama’s was applaudable; Clinton’s was just embarrassing.

| lest we misremember |

One last thing. I can’t let Clinton off the hook for her disturbing lapse in memory about her claim to have been under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996. Christopher Hitchens, no fan of the Clintons, wrote an excellent if controversial op-ed for Slate on the lie heard ‘round the campaign trail.

The issue goes right to the heart of whether or not she should be elected. This was not, as she claims, a simple gaff or slip of the tongue. She had told the same story numerous times since January. Watch her disgusting display on The Tonight Show as she cheerily mocks being under sniper fire and then proceeds to deliver her stump speech as if we should all laugh off the fact that she was caught in a lie. But I guess if you can’t laugh about war and lying to the American people, what can you laugh at?

I would say I’m surprised and disappointed that the mainstream media hasn’t given her character a much-deserved assassination over this mea culpa, but I’m not. Afterall, the media doesn’t want to appear to be pro-Obama. Despite the fact that some journalists were writing pieces about who Clinton would choose as her running mate back in 2007. She’s had all but the red carpet rolled out in front of her and she still manages to blame the media for her losses. I suppose the media’s love affair with Obama is why Reverend Wright was hardly mentioned these last few weeks and why Pat Buchanan’s racist tirade in response to Obama’s speech was all over the news. (Dear NBC: If Don Imus was fired from your television programming for being a racist, why is Pat Buchanan still a regular contributor to MSNBC?) But I digress. Being disappointed with the media’s inability to deliver the news fairly isn’t anything new. It’s just no secret that it has an impact on votes and seeing a candidate like Clinton openly lie and have the nerve to laugh about it on late night TV is sometimes more than I can handle.

| running mates |

I first supported Joe Biden when the primaries began for his foreign relations expertise and his ideas for dealing with Iraq, but after he bowed out, Obama seemed the nearest front runner I supported. Were I more of a Bidenhead, I suppose I would still write his name in on the fall ballot, but now I’ve started banking on an Obama/Biden ticket. Obama needs someone with experience to tackle that argument against McCain and he can’t do any better than my man Joe. It might not happen, but we can be sure of at least two things: Obama’s running mate won’t be Clinton and it won’t be John Edwards. Maybe John Kerry?