With all the feel of a 21^st Century, living color, high tech reinterpretation of Arthur Rackham’s Alice In Wonderland illustrations with LSD flashbacks courtesy of Timothy Leary, Director Tim Burton’s masterpiece movie, Alice In Wonderland, furthers Alice’s adventure storyline in a manner that even her originator, Lewis Carroll, would find appealing…weird but appealing. However, a word of caution here: Burton’s Alice In Wonderland is a movie that needs time to take in because right from the very start you are bombarded with social commentary, prefigurative omens, an odd sense of lurking insanity, recurring childish nightmares, and that’s all before an adult Alice falls through the rabbit hole on her return trip to Wonderland!

Based on Lewis Carroll’s books with screenplay by Linda Woolverton, Alice In Wonderland starts off showing little Alice so haunted by her nightmare visions of Wonderland that she’s slightly off-kilter socially by the time she grows into womanhood. Now Alice is into questioning everything and making whimsical statements that batter the brain of her chinless-wonder admirer at what turns out to be her garden/engagement-party-from-hell.

Alice gets put on the spot in a true nightmare situation when her unsuitable suitor makes a very public marriage proposal and you can just about smell the rubber burning as Alice zooms away from her intended fate. Oh, look! There’s the White Rabbit conveniently showing up and urging her onward to where she tumbles down that rabbit hole once again only to be confronted with the body morphing, shape shifting of Eat me! foods.

And, no, she didn’t learn about dietary moderation from last time, much to the general disgust and confusion of her welcoming party. One thing I have to say for Alice’s costumes, they don’t keep up with her physical stretching and shrinking. She’s fantastically re-clad every time she grows or shrinks.

Refusing to be typecast as their savior, Alice is a disappointment to the Wonderland crew, who have pinned as much hope on her as the inhabitants of Narnia did on the four Pevensie children. And, like the Pevensie children, Alice eventually and reluctantly comes to accept the hero quest placed upon her to make that vorple blade go snicker-snak at the Jabberwock on that fateful, frabjuous day so Wonderland may be free of the Red Queen heartfelt tyranny.

In fact, the Disney animated version notwithstanding, Alice In Wonderland is chock-a-block with visual references to other movies and whether it’s the sly nod to The Exorcist’s head-spinning dancing of the Mad Hatter, Tweedledum and Tweedledee as inspired by The Shining, the kinky fingerless gloves Alice wears as seen in Tom Petty’s music video, Don’t Come ‘Round Here No More, memories of Miss Havisham’s decades old and rotting wedding cake in Great Expectations at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, the armor cladding of Alice reminiscent of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the Time Bandits chessboard theater of war, the Jabberwocky fighting among senseless ruins ala Lord of the Rings: The Two Tower, and the Titanic moment when a newly emancipated Alice seeks her destiny abroad in the real world, it’s enough to induce a film historian headache. And let’s not forget all the eerie visual background references to Burton’s own Nightmare Before Christmas.

Mia Wasikowska as Alice comes across as a peevish and immature Cate Blanchett. Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter has a method in his madness and a gallantry in his soul that nearly seduces Alice into staying in Wonderland. It also doesn’t hurt to have hypnotic eyes either and Depp’s were enhanced technically to appear 15 percent larger. Speaking of enlarging, the exquisite Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen sports a head three times its normal size. What with her red wig, high forehead, ultra blue eye shadow, white skin complete with heart-shaped lips, when Carter gets into a towering, royal rage, it’s like a volcano exploding.

Film fans know that Helena Bonham Carter is Tim Burton’s wife and she wistfully said about her big-headed, big-ego role as Red Queen, “I can’t rely on Tim to make me pretty.”

As White Queen, Anne Hathaway mentioned that, “I wanted her to have the punk spirit of Debbie Harry, the etherealness of American artists Dan Flavin and the grace of Greta Garbo.” But, as sister to the Red Queen, all she does is come across as hypocritically and creepily pacifist. Somehow sporting Goth dead red lips and nails, harsh eyebrows, and concocting a disgusting brew made of butterfingers that even Bart Simpson wouldn’t eat on a dare makes the White Queen seem more at home in the local cemetery urging the unsuspecting to dig up the grave of her dead fiancé in order to bring her the ten carat diamond engagement ring she threw into the coffin in a fit of sacrificial sorrow.

Crispin Glover makes a suitable cad as the Knave of Hearts, Matt Lucas as Tweedledee/dum is what Curly of the Three Stooges would be like cloned. The frumious bandersnatch is sort of a cat/dog dog/cat on steroids with lots and lots and lots of teeth. The jub-jub bird is a tool of the Red Queen and gets a major headache for all its troubles. The Red Queen’s deck-of-cards henchmen look like a venetian blind convention run amok and Alan Rickman’s hookah-smoking caterpillar needs to explore the wonders of nicotine chewing gum. Surprisingly, Stephen Fry’s opportunistic Cheshire cat, while it elegantly evaporates and reforms, seems mostly bored. I know cats are cool but as cat owners will tell you, they do like a good joke.

Christopher Lee’s Jabberwock is magnificent, scary and brutal and I haven’t seen such a one as that since Jack Palance did his version in the 1966 TV production of Alice Through the Looking Glass.

Oh, that’s right…it’s also in 3D, which mercifully wasn’t available at the Back End of Beyond, Arizona movie theater where my husband and I went to see it. I can’t stand 3D movies and whether there are two versions for theater owners to choose from or those dreadful Buck Rogers 3D glasses weren’t available right then and there makes no difference to me. Seeing it flat was enough visual stimulation for this mere mortal to take in. Viewing it in 3D would have made me jump right out of my skin.

In celebration of the National Association of Education’s yearly “Read Across America” project, which started Tuesday, March 2, First Lady Michelle Obama appeared at the Library of Congress and read to a select group of youngsters Dr. Seuss’ classic children’s story, The Cat In the Hat. Her choice was appropriate enough considering that Tuesday also marked the good doctor’s birthday, who would have been 106 if still alive.

The Cat In the Hat was written by Dr. Seuss, a.k.a. Theodor Seuss Geisel, in 1957 as a response to a challenge by the Life magazine writer, John Hershey, who specifically mentioned Geisel as an ideal illustrator for modern children’s books in a May 25, 1954 article titled “Why Do Students Bog Down on First R? A Local Committee Sheds Light on a National Problem: Reading”. Geisel’s publisher, Random House, asked him to write a new style of engaging children’s literature using a limited vocabulary of only 400 words, which the publisher’s estimated school children were learning at the time. Geisel cut the suggested list down to 223 and added 16 of his own.

Using the pseudonym of “Dr. Seuss”, Geisel’s The Cat In the Hat proved an instant hit and the story of the two rainy day bored young children first enjoying then panicking over the crazy, chaotic antics of a floppy red-and-white stripped hat wearing tuxedo Cat accompanied by his eagerly undisciplined partners-in-crime, Thing One and Thing Two still resonates with young readers 53 years later.

In fact, The Cat in the Hat is such a fondly remembered piece of American literature that it was recently quoted in the US Senate when, in 2008, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, in complaining of a stalled immigration reform bill likened the problems on the Senate floor with the chaos caused by the Cat and read out from the book into the Senate record, “‘That is good,’ said the fish.’He’s gone away, yes. But your mother will come. She will find this big mess.’”

Reid went on to explain, “If you go back and read Dr. Seuss, the cat manages to clean up the mess.” A tip o’ the Cat’s hat to whichever analyst so succinctly commented about Reid’s failure to get the bill passed by saying “the Cat in the Hat did not have to contend with cloture.”

Now, considering that if Dr. Seuss was alive today as a cantankerous 106 year old watching the purposeful destruction of America through the Cloward-Priven strategy and Saul Alinsky formulated chaos, he’d want to revisit his The Cat In the Hat characters using the cadence of his Green Eggs and Ham with President Obama as the hammy Cat, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as Thing One yegg and Harry Reid as Thing Two yegg:

I do not love the Rule of Law.
I do not claim citizenry from Paw.
I do not follow Constitutional rules.
I do not care if I hurt Democratic mules.

I party every Wednesday without fail.
I drink like a fish and dine on quail.
Everything revolves around me, me, me.
I won! I won! So let me be!

I’m off to golf instead of work.
I snub the Brits and Gordon Brown’s a jerk.
I grovel in front of every despot I can.
America needs to learn that I’m the Man!

Nancy Thing is always at my side.
To my star she’s hitched a ride.
Harry Thing makes quotes so snide.
Come November 2010 they’ll have no place to hide.

The three of us America want to socialize.
Socialize! Socialize! America we want to socialize.
Obamacare is our master plan.
To take America down the can.
Obamacare! Obamacare! We’ll ram it through!
With new taxes now but no healthcare due.

The sick and elderly will wait and wait.
Fate! Fate! Succumb to fate!
Death panels and abortions late!
The old the over-taxed young will come to hate.

ARE YOU A CITIZEN BORN AND TRUE?
ARE YOU OF THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE?

I keep my past full under wrap.
I will not, care not to my citizenship provide a map.

DID YOU NOT SWEAR UPON A BIBLE?
DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE LIABLE?

I did swear upon a Bible.
I did not care that I am liable.
I did not dwell on my Kenyan family tribal.
I will not worry about birthers libel.

DID YOU INTERNALIZE KARL MARX?
DID YOU HOPE FOR CIVIL WAR SPARKS?

I did internalize Karl Marx.
I did hope for Civil War sparks.
I did not love America ever in my life.
I did not and neither did my wife.
I did not become President to bring you hope.
I care not; will not because I’m no dope.

I became President to bring you change.
With communist failure that is destructive and strange.

On Thursday morning, February 18^th, with one minute left of his popular San Francisco Bay Area early morning talk show on KSFO 560-AM, veteran radio host and dedicated conservative, Lee Rodgers, received his pink slip without warning for refusing to. “…say nice things about Muslims.”

Rodgers, a 25 year veteran of ABC Radio and a 15 year veteran at KSFO with his highly rated and profitable Lee Rodgers Show, was in the normal process of renegotiating his contract for renewal in July when he was fired last week. In a clear violation of his contract, Rodgers said that his leaving, “…was forced upon me, with no notice.”

ABC Radio is owned by Citadel Corporation and is in bankruptcy. Its move to terminate one of its highest rated and profitable hosts in a major metropolitan market seems counter-productive but is not unusual under Citadel’s current management. Earlier in the month Chicago sister station, WLS-AM 890 fired in mid-week the abrasive but entertaining libertarian, Mancow Muller, and his co-host, Pat Cassidy, for, as Muller put it, “no rhyme or reason.”

In an email sent to his fans, Rodgers wrote, “The top management of Citadel, led by a CEO named Farid Suleiman–widely regarded as the most incompetent executive in broadcasting–decided that I was making too much money after 25 years with ABC and fifteen as morning host on KSFO, taking no note of the fact that I’ve generated large sums of money for the company.”

Rodgers then went on to say, “I WILL tell you, in all candor, that thanks to Mr. Suleiman’s Citadel management, I could no longer proudly say that the company had never told me what to say or what not to say. There was an obvious cave-in to some ultra-left and pro-Muslim groups, making it unlikely that I would have ever renewed my contract with the company, anyway.”

Rodgers’ co-host, Melanie Morgan, lost her slot in what ostensibly was a cost-cutting move on the part of KSFO in 2008. However, immediately before she was let go, Morgan was war reporting directly from Iraq and was one of the leading charity organizers in the nation for sending goodie packages to our frontline fighting men and women in the WOT. Morgan was pro-Bush and a major cheerleader on the Iraqi and Afghani fronts. Even though her husband, Jack Swanson, was then and still is the manager of KSFO, it was not enough to ensure that her contract was renewed.

Over the 15 years that Rodgers was morning host, he was famous for not suffering fools gladly and holding firmly to conservative principles. He repeatedly stated that the last, true President of the United States concerned with the actual welfare of America was Ronald Reagan and that the Islamic nation building conducted under President Bush II was a disastrous waste of American manpower and money. Rodgers advocated secure borders, reported on Islamic terrorism, cultural jihad and creeping sharia within the USA, and repeatedly hammered on the Obama Administration over its gross incompetence, corruption, conflicts of interest, bailouts and willful shredding of the Constitution.

Rodgers’ co-hosts, Melanie Morgan and Officer Vic (Tom Benner), followed his lead but Rodgers left them in the dust with his show preparation and research that was so extensive he operated on only four hours of sleep a day. Rodgers never accepted second-rate thinking from anyone including his guests and nationally syndicated conservative talk show host, Mark Levin, cut his radio teeth with Rodgers as a call-in debater when Levin was a patent attorney in the South Bay/Silicon Valley city of Sunnyvale.

Rodgers is not registered with the Republican Party and, unlike many other conservative radio talk show hosts, refuses to carry water for the GOP. Rodgers could easily translate into national syndication and would give Levin and Rush Limbaugh major competition for listeners.

It may be hard to hear the drum of War beating over the hip-humping bleating of Lady Gaga but Britain just got a shot across its territorial bow once again by Argentina asserting control of all shipping between the contested Falklands and the Argentina coast. Argentina President Cristina Kirchner’s declaration of shipping lane control on Tuesday, February 16 constitutes the first steps towards a naval blockade of the Falklands referred to as “Las Malvinas” by Argentina.

Coming just 28 years after the first Falkland War, when an expansionist Argentina invaded the sleepy, sheep farming islands only to have its head royally handed back to it by British forces, Tuesday’s move by President Kirchner is this time not seen as a demand for the islands so much as a grab for the oil beds that are within Falklands territorial waters and said to be potentially greater than the output of the 40 billion barrel North Seas oil fields. The arbitrary declaration demands that all ships wishing to operate within the waters between the Falklands and Argentina may do so only after getting a new Argentinean permit, effectively stopped the next-day delivery and start of the year-long construction of the Ocean Guardian oil rig to the Falklands offshore oil beds.

The Director of the Falkland Islands Company, Roger Spink, tried to make light of the confrontation by saying, “There has been an economic blockade of the Falklands from Argentina for many years. It’s something we’ve come to expect.”

Anticipating the controversy, Cabinet chief, Aníbal Fernández, commented, “Any boat that wants to travel between ports on the Argentine mainland to the Islas Malvinas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. . . must first ask for permission from the Argentine Government.”

Tensions have been running high between the UK and Argentina because Britain refused to stop its oil explorations in what is its own Falkland territory. Argentinean jets actually trailed the Ocean Guardian oil rig all the way from its Scottish Highlands point of origin to its approach to the Falklands. Last week the ship, Thor Leader, was boarded and detained by Argentinean forces because that nation claimed the ship was “illegally” bringing in pipes for the oil crews already stationed on the Falklands themselves.

Besides the high seas heavy-handedness, Argentina is also putting in a complaint to the UN to stop Britain’s oil drilling. Argentinean Foreign Minister, Jorge Taiana, hinted darkly that his country was planning to take, “all necessary steps” to assert its claim over the islands.

However, if Argentina expects to go the military route, it will be facing British forces stationed on the island along with a destroyer the UK keeps in Falkland waters. Analysts in the UK think that Argentina’s aggressiveness over the Falkland oil fields is jingoistic saber rattling by President Kirchner to distract from her increasingly unpopular and corrupt government at home.

One angle not anticipated by these analysts is that it is Gordon Brown as the post-nationalist Labour Prime Minister now in the UK and not the nationalist Tory Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in charge. Budgetary cuts have reduced British naval forces and its under-equipped troops are stretched thin in Afghanistan. Leftists are always sneering at going to war over territory or natural resources and a real “war for oil” may not be enough to get them to trade bullets with a failing nation-state like Argentina.

The Falklands are half a world away from the UK and represent the shreds of a once great empire that international socialists like Brown are anxious to forget. Meanwhile, Argentina, separated as it is by only 300 miles of ocean, looks with greed and envy on the Falklands. Their move at this time to reassert what they claim is their ownership is far more calculated now than it was nearly three decades ago. Considering that Gordon Brown just gave the go-ahead for the Port and White Cliffs of Dover to be sold outright to the French, what then would be his justification for maintaining control of the Falklands if national pride, territorial integrity and control of natural resources are not enough for the internationalists currently at the helm in the UK with which to defend Britain and her interests?

Staggering under a national debt of £830billion ($1.245 trillion) for a nation only about the size of California with a population about twice that state’s, the UK’s Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is selling off its hard asset Dover Port to its historical arch-enemy, France, in a benighted attempt at debt reduction through privatization.

Although the UK already has sold off its other major ports to private hands through the 1991 Ports Act, the sale of Dover Port and the White Cliffs to France has generated anger and outrage among the general British population, a large percentage of whom have living memories of WWII.

Confronted by the historically inverted, proposed sale to the regional council of Nord-pas-de-Calais, Tory candidate for MP, Charles Elphicke had this to say of Calais owning Dover, “In trying to sell off our port and the White Cliffs, it’s clear Gordon Brown has no sense of the history of our nation or the pride of our town.

‘How dare he consider selling it all off to the French? Dover is the English border. We stood proud in defending our nation in times past.

‘We are the nation’s front line. The people of Dover have a clear message for him - hands off our port, hands off the English border, hands off the White Cliffs.’

The sale of Dover is expected to generate between £350million and £500million and was initially prompted by the Dover harbor board’s request to be privatized to the UK Transportation Secretary in order to get construction money for port upgrades.

Earlier this year Calais already proclaimed itself as “part of England” and “the gateway to the UK” in order to catch some anticipated reflected glory and tourist dollars from the Olympics set for London in 2012.

Thanks to Edward III’s continental conquest, it could be argued that Calais was “part of England” from 1347 to 1558 but not since. Dover and Calais are only 21 miles apart and a major transport connection between the UK and the EU.

Other items on the UK’s asset fire sale are its Post Office, student loans, a major toll highway crossing the Thames, and its stake in a uranium processing company called Urenco.

The UK is apparently a Petri dish for socialist experimentation in the English speaking world so whatever is done to the UK will translate to American shores within three to ten years depending on how fast agendas are set in place. Considering the $12 trillion (and counting!) national debt of the US, what might the Obama Administration, seemingly bent on the destruction of the U.S.A., sell off in order to ease that debt?

Since France is already in a buying mood, would it like to take back the Louisiana Purchase? No doubt that would produce a few trillion dollars right there although Obama might have to throw in New Orleans “as is” to get Paris to take it off our hands. Spain’s King Juan Carlos already has dibs on the tolls to be generated by the stalled trans-Texas corridor but Florida is always up for grabs. Al Gore blindly handed over something like $40 billion to Russia during the Clinton years so they do have the dosh to buy back Seward’s Folly, a.k.a. Alaska, although Gov. Palin might have something to say about that transaction.

Mexico would just love to take back all of our Southwest but has no intention on paying back anything it received from us in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo since it is currently using the demographics of its poor to flood our country with recolonizing illegal aliens.

Then there’s our Post Office system and schools although a quick glance at our universities and text books show Saudi money flooding in so they might as well stop fooling around and buy the US educational system wholesale. Japan might like to buy Hawaii if Hawaii doesn’t leave the Union first although considering that Japan has yet to recover from it’s economy going south in the ‘80s, that sale may just be tabled for the foreseeable future.

If all this sounds far-fetched, think again. Our bad bank loans were bundled up and sold as financial instruments overseas prompting a world-wide financial crisis that not only shows no signs of clearing up but of getting worse. Thanks to Jimmy Carter, we no longer control the strategic Panama Canal and thanks to the Bush and Obama administrations massive government bailouts and Weimar Republic-style running of our printing presses, our future and the futures of at least five generations of yet-to-be-born Americans have been sold off to the Federal Reserve and Wall Street. We’re indentured servants now and, since a nation’s greatest asset is its people, it wouldn’t all be that big a step to slavery at the auction block at the rate the Democrats and the Obama Administration are spending money.

Over the years I’ve always made sure to purchase the September issue of Vogue and did so for more decades than I care to admit. I finally dropped Vogue in favor of Harper’s Bazaar when women of my age started disappearing from Vogue’s acknowledgement as savvy fashion consumers to be replaced with fashion-masquerading pro-leftist commentary. The conspicuous consumption and luxury-addicted Vogue never did catch on that the romance of revolutionary thought was just a façade to hide a grasping, murderous and rapacious political system based on greed and envy. In fact, the editors of Vogue still haven’t figured it out and even Harper’s Bazaar is guilty of it although to a lesser degree. At least with Harper’s, I can still find “women of a certain age” held up as fashionable icons but that’s about it.

However, women’s magazines in general and fashion commentary in particular are a surprisingly accurate means of forecasting who will be the winners in political elections. I’ve often written that if you want to know who will win American elections, look to the catwalk and check out the zeitgeist of the collections. When I saw even Madonna picking up the Wild West vibe of the runways by sporting her cowgirl hat and boots before the November 2000 elections, I knew George W. Bush would win despite the frantic efforts of the Al Gore camp to continue challenging the results until enough fraudulent votes could be manufactured by Democratic operatives.

It didn’t take a genius to discover that Obama was destined to win the 2008 elections either. All you had to do was see all the pro-Obama message tees on the runway to figure that one out. It was so blatant, it was depressing. The runways right now for Fall 2010 are full of Post-Apocalyptic wear featuring rips, tears, disjointed and mismatched patterns, and hard, funnel-necked leather jackets vying with cantilevered, architectural reinterpretations of the human form in such a way that has not been seen since the Mannerist fashions of the first Queen Elizabeth.

The models seem mostly to be sporting blackened, smoky eyes and ratty, messy hair. It’s like fashion has lost its collective mind and is simply waiting for the conservative triumph at the voting booth bombs to drop for the final touch to Mad Max fashion wear just right for that Saturday night punch-up in the parking lot behind Democratic Party headquarters.

A presage of what we can expect in November 2010 will be the elections over in the UK where Tory Party leader, David Cameron, will beat the pants off Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown in May of this year. How can I be so sure? Well, my fashion radar picked up a little blip the other day from the style magazine, Tatler, where David Cameron’s wife, Samantha, beat out France’s former high fashion super model First Lady, Carla Bruni Sarkozy in a celebrity survey for the best dressed woman in politics category. Evidently Tatler is picking up on the extreme disgust Brits have for the grotesque and ruinous mishandling by New Labour of the country over the past 12 years to the point where ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “Cool Britannia” has now morphed into “Cruel Britannia”.

And, let’s face it: when an iconic and hip magazine like the Tatler titles an article, Is it rude to vote Labour…& other social dilemmas resolved, in its January 2010 edition, the jig is definitely up for the Red Rose socialists of the Labour Party.

However, don’t let the interchangeable title of Tory and conservative fool you for David Cameron. As much as the UK would be better off with a real conservative as Americans understand the term, Tory/conservatives in the UK are more akin to center-left Democrats here in the US. Occasionally the British version of a blue dog democrat within the Tory Party might sneak into office but if anyone is hoping for the return of principled men and women in the Thatcherite mode, well, leisure suits will make a fashion comeback before they will.

Cameron is an eco-greenie character responsible for switching the Tory Party’s traditional hand bearing the Torch of Liberty to a politically correct Ecology tree. His elitism is such that he refused a reporter’s request to use his powder room after his interview was over because he didn’t want the reporter to “dirty” the facilities. He’s all for the harsh Nanny State type legislature currently ruining Brits’ lives and thinks the most pressing thing facing his country is not the unrestrained and refusing-to-assimilate masses of hostile immigrants hitting UK shores but AGW.

Like Brown, Cameron will also be hamstrung by EU rules and regulations coming out of Brussels so if Brits think that things will change for the better under the Tories, they will be in for a sad disappointment. Disappointment is the name of the game in politics on either side of the Atlantic when you put, “…your trust in princes” as American conservatives learned when Republican Scott Brown’s Massachusetts election to the US Senate wasn’t even days old before he announced that he wanted to act in a bipartisan manner.

Oh, and remember that Tatler survey about the best dressed women in politics? Michelle Obama and her boob belts didn’t even place and if that isn’t a sign of things to come, I don’t know what is.

On the Culture Wars front, the British supermarket chain, Tescos, struck a blow for sartorial dignity in its St. Mellons in Cardiff, Wales branch by posting a “Customer Dress Code Policy” banning shoppers coming in clad in pajamas, barefoot and/or both.

Signs saying, “To avoid causing offence or embarrassment to others we ask that our customers are appropriately dressed when visiting our store (footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted).” have been placed at the entrance to the store in what Americans will recognize as a variation on our “No Shoes, no shirt, no service.” domestic stores policy although here in open-carry Arizona, “no weapons allowed” signs give a regional variation that must make the Nervous Nellie crowd feel better.

Back at the St. Mellons Tescos, outraged customer, Elaine Carmody, was actually turned away when she tried to buy cigarettes because of her sloppy and routine PJ bottoms and slippers wear.

Calling the banning of PJs as “pathetic” and “ridiculous”, the 24 year old, said, “If you’re allowed to wear jogging bottoms, why aren’t you allowed to wear pajamas in there, that’s what I don’t understand? I think it’s stupid really not being allowed in the supermarket with pajamas on.”

“It’s not as if they’re going to fall down or anything like that. They should be happy because you’re going to spend all that money.”

Carmody added, “It’s not as if you’re making a show, if anything they should be happy because you’re spending your money in their shop, but obviously they’re not because you’re not allowed in with pajamas. So they’re going to lose their custom with people going to other shops to buy stuff and they’re allowed in with their pajamas on.”

Clueless shoppers like Carmody show a disturbing confusion between “the customer is always right” and a complete lack of personal self-respect and discipline. They are exhibiting, broadcasting actually, carelessness about themselves and ultimate contempt for others.

It used to be that whoever roamed about in their PJs was usually an escapee from a lunatic asylum. Now it’s SOP for slobs in the US and it’s worrying to see that the fad has spread to the UK. In fact, in California, they have “Come to School in your PJs” day which immediately makes one think that the school principal involved is a pervert of some type.

Our American TV version of What Not To Wear constantly takes on the PJs-as-outer-wear phenomena and the fashion disaster du jour routinely whines about how they, “…want to be comfortable.” Show co-host, Clinton Kelly, always snaps back with a, “…but we have to look at you!” comment about respecting one’s self and the venue one is in.

Jogging, track wear and sweat suits do show up as inappropriate Sunday wear in US churches and even at special occasions like Baptisms and funerals. While it can be argued that as long as you are in prayerful mode, God is pleased but the pastor and the rest of the congregation certainly aren’t. They are keenly aware of the insult even if the wearer is blithely ignorant of the message of disrespect that they are sending.

Going anywhere barefoot is just plain unhygienic and dangerous especially considering the preponderance of discarded hypodermic needles left by junkies at beaches and playgrounds. Broken glass is everywhere including the interior of supermarkets. Considering that many people do not bother curbing their dogs or scooping up the feces afterwards, an unshod romp in the park and stroll through the produce section afterwards is enough to gag a maggot.
No doubt multi-culti fanatics will start squealing in outraged defense of the national wear of Pakistan, a.k.a. “Pakistani pajama” outfits falling into the nightwear category but seeing foreign dress on residents of the US, UK or any other First World Western nation is a loud and clear indication of refusal to assimilate. And that is a whole different front in the Culture Wars.

Coakley witnessing McCormack's assault by Meehan

Upon leaving a Democratic fundraiser at a bar in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday evening, January 12^th, Massachusetts Attorney General and Senatorial candidate Martha Coakley received what may be a fatal body blow to her campaign when her bodyguard pushed hard to the sidewalk an accredited Weekly Standard reporter, John McCormack, for daring to ask tough and probing questions when he had the chance.

The bodyguard in question wasn’t just your average Democratic rent-a-thug either. He is none other than Michael Meehan, a highly placed operative within the Democratic National Party and the communications expert for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). He was an advisor to Senators Kerry and Boxer, was Chief of Staff to Senator Cantwell and was a political director for former Senator Daschle when he was Senate Majority Leader. Now Meehan, besides currently acting the goon for Coakley, is an Obama-appointed nominee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) whose stated mission is to provide, “an example of a free and professional press” to the world at large and which oversees the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

The Associated Press immediately aided the Democratic thuggery and hypocrisy of the situation by misreporting the incident as McCormack “stumbling” and claiming that in photos and videos, which clearly show Meehan’s push and subsequent body blocking of McCormack as, “Photos and video show Coakley aide Michael Meehan trying to help McCormack up.”

Coakely herself is seen in photos and videos as an eye witness to the assault, barely breaking stride as she swept past the prone McCormack. Despite the hard evidence, she said, “I’m not sure what happened. I know something occurred, but I’m not privy to the facts. I’m sure it will come out, but I’m not aware of that.”

She is also blaming her Republican Senatorial rival, Scott Brown, for the incident, claiming that McCormack was a “Republican stalker”.

According to McCormack, “She saw me get knocked to the ground and kept walking. “I wouldn’t say I was surprised. … She’s decided she’s entitled to the seat without answering questions on issues that are of national importance.”

As a state Attorney General, Coakley is required by law to report the assault that she witnessed no matter who did it. By actively denying photographic and video evidence, which clearly shows her witnessing the assault, Coakley is not only shielding but aiding and abetting violence against the press, which is a thuggish tactic of win-at-all-costs despots throughout modern history. If that is the case then her earlier regrettable campaign ad misspelling “Massachusetts” is going to be the least of the Bay State’s worries if their Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who is notorious for rushing through Democratic wins, makes good his threat to delay the seating of a winning Republican in order to maintain President Obama’s 60 Democratic seat super majority for the upcoming Obamacare Senate vote.

Blame it on my British husband for turning me into a fan of Guy Ritchie as a director but I just love his movies! Sure, they’re violent but so is the news and if what is being done to the US Constitution by our ruling elites doesn’t qualify as excessively brutal, I don’t know what is. So, what can a maturing director, whose movies have convoluted plots and Dickensian characters, do but combine 1892 Victorian London and the greatest fictional detective of all, Sherlock Holmes? The mix works and it is magic. Sherlock Holmes is director Guy Ritchie’s masterpiece of grit, grime and gigantic characters all grinding together in an exciting mystery adventure film complete with ersatz occult magic hinting at New World Order trickery.

Sherlock Holmes is a feast for the eyes and a real workout for the educated. You’ve got clues galore, fantastic urban archeology, great costuming, your usual satanic cult, your “dead” rising from the grave, your decadent aristocrats, your gruesome deaths, bare knuckle fighting, scenes in slaughterhouses, crazy contraptions ala Jules Verne, allusions to Cecil Rhodes’ desire to reunite America to Great Britain, the disastrous and premature launching of a sailing vessel, the construction detailing of London’s Tower Bridge being turned into a rough justice gibbet and Escher moments on stairwells.

Already up for a Golden Globe Nomination, Sherlock Holmes stars Robert Downey Jr. as a bohemian Holmes tormented by his brilliance, unconcerned about social niceties and reckless of his personal safety, able to function at any and all levels of society. Jude Law is his Dr. John Watson, but a Dr. Watson, who is more of a physical equal, brave as a lion yet prey to gambling and a desire for normalcy that constantly plays second fiddle to the adrenaline rush of accompanying Holmes on his dangerous missions.

Thrown into this friendship is the disturbing Irene Adler, played by the tepid Rachel McAdams, the only woman to have ever bested Holmes in a game of wits in Sir Author Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia. Watson finds Holmes obsession for Adler a great weakness and Holmes considers Watson’s love for his fiancée, Mary Morsten, boring. However, the tension between the two over their personal lives takes back seat to their hunt for and ultimate thwarting of the formerly executed, newly-resurrected Lord Blackwood, a black magic murderer determined to take over the world by first bringing down Parliament by poison gas.

Normally, when modern authors seek to “improve” or extend storylines on long dead authors, they fail miserably since they totally disregard the spirit of the original stories in favor of our currently crude and ahistorical culture poisoned through and through with political correctness. But the coordination of the screenplay by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg with the screen story by Lionel Wigram and Michael Robert Johnson is everything Sir Author Conan Doyle could have wished and then some. In other words, Sherlock Holmes: Nazi Hunter, this ain’t.

Guy Ritchie regular Mark Strong plays Lord Blackwood with all the malevolent energy of a Victorian Dracula and Eddie Marsan plays the unenviable role of Inspector Lestrade. Kelly Reilly is the wine flinging, long suffering Mary Morsten. The only sour note I found in the character portrayals was Geraldine James ‘, Mrs. Hudson, who is alternately sneered at and insulted by Holmes. Previously, Holmes was the soul of respectful courtesy towards Mrs. Hudson but Ritchie’s movie Holmes has a familiarity-breeds-contempt nastiness in the relationship.

At the end there is the hint of a sequel with the unmasking of Irene Adler’s mystery boss, Professor Moriarity, but I would like to see Cate Blanchett cast as Irene Adler. Unlike Rachel McAdams, with Blanchett, you not only know but can see that there is intelligence behind those icy, calculating eyes.

Sherlock Holmes is a must-see movie and a great way to start off your 2010 viewing season. Parents: Whatever you do, make sure to drag your teenagers to this movie. They need to be exposed to some of the greatest characters of English literature ever invented. The movie itself is really too intense for preteens and young children but get them reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories, which are perfect transitional reading from kiddie to young adult literature. I discovered Sherlock Holmes at age eight and the very first story I read was The Speckled Band. It not only scared the delicious bejeepers out of me but I couldn’t sleep without a night light on for weeks afterward. Then one day I realized that I didn’t know anyone, who had been to India, and could finally turn off the light for a good night’s sleep.