Pun Salad

Not intentionally, of course. At the Huffington Post, she experiences a "political epiphany" at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco, while eavesdropping on women caretaking their mothers while dealing with medical bureaucracy.

Listening to these women manage their mothers with effectiveness and as much patience as they could muster, admitting to errors, standing in interminable lines, speed-dialing medical professionals, I wanted to ask, "Could you run my country?"

Sure. Those are exactly the job skills we need in a President. Because the President does that sort of thing all the time.

But it turns out this sort of thing is exactly what propelled Hillary Clinton to her New Hampshire primary win:

… female voters didn't seem to be responding to Clinton's tears so much as to their outrage at men's reactions to those tears (in particular, men in the media).

Ah, there's a good reason to vote for someone: because men—boo, hiss—don't think Presidents should tear up, or even pretend to tear up, when asked softball questions about their feelings.

Faludi's conclusion:

If pundits ever tried to understand what some female voters know about the complexity of women's lives, they might begin to comprehend the appeal of a female candidate whose ethic of caring and whose posture of femininity derive from responsibilities beyond the maternal. And then they might begin to understand the affection of women in New Hampshire who put her over the top.

Alternatively, those pundits could reasonably ask: why on earth would women think that "caring" talents are exactly what are needed in a President?

For the record, I have more respect for female voters than does Susan Faludi. I think, on average, they're not as flighty and superficial as Susan thinks they are. Hope so, anyway.

Why, yes, I did watch two Christian Bale movies in a row. Good catch.

As I type, this movie is #194 on IMDB's top-250 movies list of all time. Please. It's a mostly-faithful remake of a 1957 movie, about which I blogged here.

Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a small Arizona rancher about to be crushed by ruthless capitalists; his family has lost all respect for him. But one day master criminal Ben Wade (played by Russell Crowe) and his gang decide to knock over a stagecoach in his neighborhood. Through a merry mixup, Wade gets caught while the rest of his gang escape. Wade must be placed on the next train to—guess where?—Yuma, which leaves at—guess when?—3:10. Seeing an opportunity for financial and moral salvation, Dan signs up for the escort party.

Psychological tension is mostly the ticket here; Wade and Dan develop a complex relationship, while the other members of the team dwindle away violently.

As you might expect, Crowe and Bale act the heck out of their roles. However, I liked the 1957 version better. Without spoilers, I didn't much care for the ending here.

Peter Fonda is in this, and (mea culpa) I was surprised to see his name in the credits; I didn't recognize him at all. (I skipped back and said: "Oh, yeaaah.")

NH Primary fallout continues. If you were voting on the Republican side, I suppose you noticed that you could have voted for "Vermin Supreme", were you so inclined. (Skeptical? I got your sample PDF ballot right here.)

And I suppose you might also be wondering how Supreme comes down on the recount issue, pushed by other lunatic fringe candidates with unlikely names, like "Albert Howard" and "Dennis Kucinich".

Well, it turns out he's for it. Drew Cline has the press release to prove it.

Vermin's website? It's here.