Suck news of the day: the Brattle Theater is in trouble (original). Compared to Katrina? This is a pretty trivial deal. But it’s still significant enough for me to care. The Brattle has film programming as good as anything I’ve seen anywhere, including the Castro Theater out in San Francisco. Ned Hinkle, who does the programming, has an exhaustive knowledge of film and he has the contacts and know-how necessary to program festivals ranging from a complete Wong Kar Wai retrospective to a classic film noir series. They also run the Boston Fantastic Film Festival, which is small potatoes compared to Fantasia or Sitges, but which does not in the least suck to have around. ...

Speaking of fractures in the Republican Party: Roy Moore, the Alabama Chief Justice who was removed from office for ignoring an order to remove a representation of the Ten Commandments from the state judicial building, will challenge Republican governor Bob Riley in 2006. Betcha he wins.

My initial read on the Miers nomination is that she’s the big business pick. She spent almost three decades as a corporate lawyer, eventually becoming a partner at one of the biggest law firms in Texas. She worked with Karl Rove on Texas tort reform back when Bush was governor. And, as has been reported just about everywhere, she’s tremendously loyal to Bush. It reads like she’s part of Bush’s Texas business-oriented crowd to me. This is one of the pillars of Bush’s support, alongside the social conservative bunch. Social conservative is perhaps an oversimplification here; I’m not sure I should be putting anti-government types like Grover Norquist alongside Rick Santorum. But close enough for now; they’ve got more in common than either of them do with Dick Cheney. More to the point, it’d have been possible to nominate a Justice who’d satisfy both Norquist and Santorum. ...

Long distance relationships have gotten a lot easier since I was in college. It’s all technology, right? But I cast my mind back, and I remember when phone calls were a huge deal. You had to ration them, because there’s nothing you want more than to talk to your girlfriend for a long, long time, but an hour of phone conversation is awfully expensive. Ramen or voice contact. Hard choice. So you get a call a week, maybe two, and you have to keep it reasonably short, and letters are very nice but not quite the same. ...

The answer to the question “how does filmed entertainment reach the eyes of the viewer” continues to change, as per this article on direct to video movies. This isn’t anything new, of course; Disney has been doing this for years and years. Just ask any parent. Still and all, it’s significant that the direct to video market in the US is gaining… aha. Legitimacy is the word. Direct to video Disney releases is one thing; a direct to video sequel to Carlito’s Way is more interesting. ...

The Complete New Yorker is pretty cool. Kind of easy to describe, too: it’s every single New Yorker scanned and archived on 8 DVDs. You can get a tour of the interface here (original). Yep, I bought it more or less instantly. Come on — $65 on Amazon (or Barnes and Noble)? Sure thing. It’s cool. The interface is a tad clunky on the Mac, but it’s easy to flip through an issue and it’s very very readable. The search is slowish. I’m not sure how well it’s indexed; a search on Red Sox for the last five years or so returned nothing. On the other hand, a search on Cronenberg was quite successful. I imagine each article is tagged with key words. ...

I should be checking the eTree live music archive (original) more often. Cowboy Junkies, 94 shows. Drive-By Truckers, 138 shows. Hayseed Dixie, 13. Mike Doughty, 42. Three Decemberists shows. Warren Zevon, 53 shows. Mmm, tasty.

Sports journalism is often a pretty conservative field, especially when it comes to talk radio. Tank McNamara, the sports-themed comic strip — I say “the.” Maybe there’s another one, I dunno, but it’s the only one I know about. Anyhow. The current storyline is about Tank McNamara infiltrating the Minutemen, that charming anti-immigration group that’s walking the thin line between citizen activism and vigilante activity. Cause the biggest threat to the United States today is illegal Mexican immigration. ...

The Massachusetts Legislature rejected an amendment banning gay marriage by the resounding margin of 157-39 yesterday. The margin is partially because the extreme right voted no as well — the amendment would permit civil unions, and some of the reps think that’s wrong too. But it’s mostly because gay marriage hasn’t ended the world here in the Bay State. There’s been an election cycle between the court order allowing gay marriage and now, and gay marriage was an election issue. The opinion of the courts matches the opinion of the legislature, and the opinion of the legislature reflects the opinion of the people. Done and done, as they say.

Tacitus, when all is said and done, is honest. Do I disagree with him? Lots. Do I respect his integrity? Generally, yeah. He’s not perfect. Neither am I. Who is? The world needs more Republicans like him and John Cole, and more Democrats who can tell the difference between John Cole and John Derbyshire.