California mimics the Ocean State

California certainly has done itself proud. In trying to keep pace with our own example of how to provide entertainment in the context of politics, it has finally made its big move. Cali’s longtime flirtation with "direct democracy" statutes has so lowered the bar for bringing ballot issues to a vote that it faces a gubernatorial recall election with about 200 candidates. And what a fabulous field it is. Yes, there’s Ahh-nold, but the Arnold we’re watching is pint-sized actor-cum-candidate Gary Coleman (who played a character named Arnold on TV).

So let’s see, there’s a 100-year-old woman, a stripper, a burnt-out child actor, a shape-shifting journalist formerly married to a US Senate candidate (who had dropped out of the race and, soon thereafter, proclaimed that he is gay), a guy named Michael Jackson who has not had eight zillion cosmetic surgery procedures, and who knows what else.

The Vo Dilun equivalent of all this would be a race featuring Salty Brine (who once almost did run for Congress), Wendy Collins, the Big Blue Bug, Al Cerrone, and the guy from Furniture City. It’s nice to see that some of the heat is off the Biggest Little to be the prime laugh source in American politics.

And incidentally, your superior correspondents have picked up the copyright in California for a bumper sticker that reads, "Hitler was an Austrian." We’ll be back.

PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN

Yes, while Dubya Bush relaxes on yet another vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas — no doubt exhausted from trying to understand the big words inserted into his speech by his pink-cheeked, porcine minder, Karl Rove — here is a nice, inspiring little piece from the English newspaper, the Independent. (And remember, British prime minister Tony Blair is Boy George’s poodle and the Brits are our most famous allies among the ridiculously named Coalition of the Corrupt, Brain Dead, and Whored-Out Countries Who Want Beaucoup Aid Bucks From America, excuse us, er, we meant, Coalition of the Willing, so it isn’t like this came from Le Monde.)

FAMILY SHOT DEAD BY PANICKING US TROOPS

Firing blindly during a power cut, soldiers kill a father and three children in their car

By Justin Huggler in Baghdad; Sunday 10 August 2003

The abd al-Kerim family didn’t have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop.

"We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us," the heavily pregnant Ms. abd al-Kerim said. "We were calling out to them ‘Stop, stop, we are a family,’ but they kept on shooting . . . We could see the other girls and their brother lying on the back seat of the car. They would not let us go to the hospital. I was not as badly injured as the others."

"After a while they released her and let her come to us," Mr. Jawad said. "But when they finally let us go to the hospital, Mervet died. The doctors checked her injuries and told us she would have lived if we had brought her sooner . . . The doctors said they might have lived if they got there sooner: the main cause of death was bleeding. The Americans left them to bleed in the street for hours."

Believe us, P&J would be as jumpy and scared to death as many of our soldiers who have been hung out to dry in Iraq by President National Guard Duty-Dodger Dubya and his chicken hawk advisors. Face it: we have put some of the toughest and most courageous young men and women in the US in an impossible position. Bring ’em on, indeed, George. Having a nice holiday, you pussy?

VO DILUN CONQUERS NEW YORK

Sunday’s edition of the New York Times was a biggie for our state. As usual, the Bud-I took top billing with a story in the front news section about the current wave of Cianci-mania sweeping the Northeast. Prominently featured was the off-off-Broadway attraction Buddy Cianci: The Musical (which received a rather mixed review from the BeloJo’s Channing Gray), and Mike Stanton’s book. Nice to see a photo of East Side businessman Ken Dulgarian, accompanying the piece.

Meanwhile, the book section featured a review of the Stanton opus, The Prince of Providence. Reviewer Clyde Haberman gave the book high marks for its colorful stories and characters — how can you miss with Bobo, Buckles, Blackjack, and company — but was less than impressed with Mike’s prose style. ("Unfortunately, even a parade of wacky characters like this does not lift the writing here above the functional.")

Finally, the featured wedding in the "Sunday Styles" section was the Kara Sundlun/Dennis House nuptials that took place in Newport on August 1. Yes, readers of Sunday’s Times really got a good dose of Vo Dilun this week.

KEEP COUNTING

Tip of the week: Check out this Web site regarding the cost to the US of the occupation of Iraq, then avoid banging your head against a wall until you’re unconscious. It’s at www.costofwar.com (Major thanks to Mr. Tobey for this one.).

KEEN EYE ON KAREN

Here’s a name for you to remember: Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. She worked in the office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith until her retirement in April and is now blowing the whistle on all the BS — Bush Shit — being foisted on the public by the currently on-vacation administration.

The Inter Press Service News Agency reports "Kwiatkowski charge(d) that the operations she witnessed during her tenure in Feith’s office, and particularly those of an ad hoc group known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), constituted ‘a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress.’

" ‘What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline,’ " Kwiatkowski wrote. " ‘If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of ‘intelligence’ found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam [Hussein] occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).’ "

Boys and girls, when staunch, stouthearted military officials start criticizing America’s leadership, as many members of the forces in Iraq are starting to do about our self-obsessed secretary of defense, Rummy Rumsfeld — who has never seen combat, but doesn’t mind sending others to die — we have some serious morale problems. Oh, and remember Dubya is reducing your family support and retirement benefits, warriors.

KIDD STUFF

Was that indeed star point guard Jason Kidd of the New Jersey Nets shopping in the new Lowe’s store in Warwick the other day? One of Phillipe and Jorge’s trusted compatriots, who knows a great deal about National Basketball Association hoops, swears to it, although his manners prevented him from saying anything to the star player. Well, OK, it’s not an Ernie D. sighting, but it will do for the off-season.

SHOCK(EY) AND AWE

P&J are, naturally, not big fans of homophobic comments, but we did enjoy the jolt delivered by New York Giants’ All-Pro terrible tyke Jeremy Shockey to former Giants, New England Patriots, and New York Jets head coach Bill Parcells, now the major domo of the Dallas Cowboys, if only because you know it practically made his enlarged head explode.

In a New York magazine article, Shockey said, "Let’s see how much Parcells wins this year, I’ll make him pay when we play them. The homo."

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. The "Tuna," as Parcells is known, walked out on the Patriots for the Jets. Vowing never to coach again — a promise that lasted for an apropos New York minute — he then took on the Jets job and helped drive out his friend Bill Belichick, now the Pats’ boss, who delighted local fans when he brought home an absolutely improbable Super Bowl crown. Parcells is now working for Dallas owner Jerry Jones. This makes for perhaps the most embarrassing and loathsome duo since Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, Barbra Streisand and James Brolin, or the Kray Twins. Parcells’ insistence on wearing Sans-A-Belt pants over one of those disgusting below-the-belt bulges has made him a buffoon in the NFL, and one can only hope that Shockey catches a couple of TD passes when the teams meet this year.

There’s a cold Pernod and grapefruit waiting at Casa Diablo on us, Jeremy.

KUDOS AND CONGRATS . . .

. . . to two local politicians with guts, US Representative Patrick Kennedy and Mayor David "Little Chi Chi" Cicilline, for their support of gay marriage. You know where your superior correspondents stand on this (not to mention Charlie Bakst at the Other Paper, who has been unstinting in his support). As 98 percent of the elected officials in the land waffle on this and mumble something about "civil unions," this is going to happen and it is right. We are particularly offended by the morons who try to lump in gay marriage with the legalization of bestiality or pedophilia. The phrase is "consenting adults" and consent can’t be gotten from an animal or a minor. End of story. And incest and polygamy are illogical comparisons as well. It’s sort of frightening that conservatives, who pride themselves on their "logical" analysis of things, are so abstruse on this.

Need we add that a man marrying a man, or a woman doing likewise with a woman, can in no way have a negative impact on those heteros who wish to marry. The ridiculous arguments of this type are absurd. There will be a fight, a backlash, and it will take more time than it should, but mark our words, there will be same-sex marriage in the U.S. of A., and it will be right and good.

Send wedding decorations and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j@phx. com