Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Friday Fluff

Friday, July 20, 2001

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First, the results of the e-mail wars which were ignited by Wednesday's Mullings. Over 600 people wrote to express their opinions. I tried to answer everyone once, but I got overwhelmed so if you didn't get a response, please be assured I read your opinion.

The results are as follows: The opinions of people who do not live in California were overwhelmingly in agreement with my own. As to the people who DO live in California � Let's just put them down as "leaning against."

In our continuing effort to keep you up-to-date on the latest cultural phenomena, Mullings threw itself into the tar pit yesterday, taking the afternoon off yesterday to see Jurassic Park III.

It was not horrible, but I would rank it as barely passable. If it didn't have the words "Jurassic Park" in the title it might have gone straight to video.

William H. Macy (of Fargo) plays the father of a boy lost on the island with the beasts. Inasmuch as Mr. Macy looks similar to Gary Condit, the notion of him searching a heavily wooded area for a young person who "has been missing for eight weeks" was chilling in a way the producers could never have predicted.

The boy's mother is played by T�a Leoni who is very cute and, I am certain, met the main requirement set by the director: "Must run like a boy" because (a) she does, and (b) she does it a lot.

The special effects are all right, but they are not much better than the "Walking With Dinosaurs" series on the Discovery Channel. In fact they are not as good as the Discovery Channel franchise.

There was a credit for someone who had the job of "2nd 2nd Assistant Director." I wondered if that had been authorized by the Department of Redundancies Department at Universal Studios.

On the Chandra front, California Democratic Congressman Gary Condit's public relations expert, Marina Ein, was quoted by reporter Joshua Micah Marshall in Salon.com as attempting to tarnish Chandra Levy's character. Marshall wrote, "Ein implied that Levy has a history of frequent, casual sexual encounters that might in some way be tied to her disappearance."

Ein has denied the report; Marshall is sticking by his story. Perhaps Salon.com should offer to pay for lie detector tests for Ms. Ein and Mr. Marshall.

The Associated Press' Larry Margasak has written a remarkable piece about how the Democratic National Committee was under the day-to-day control of organized labor. According to Margasak the AP has obtained documents which the Democrats have sued to keep secret.

"While labor's support of Democrats is well known," Margasak writes, "the documents show labor leaders had veto power over Democratic Party plans in 1996 by virtue of their large donations and seats on the steering committees in each state."

An example:
"In one case, a New York hospital workers union, Local 1199, spent
$250,000 from its strike defense fund for a $2.7 million effort called
the '96 Project' aimed at holding congressional Republicans
accountable for their support of Newt Gingrich's ''Contract with
America,'' the records show."

This is a story which is likely to move wavering Republican Members of the House toward accepting the current version of campaign finance reform legislation.

Notwithstanding the shockingly bad manners of Democratic Senate Leader, Tom Daschle, the meetings between President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair apparently went well. According to the BBC, "The two men spoke in glowing terms about the strength of the bond between America and Britain - which Mr. Blair called 'a very strong relationship, a very special one.'"

See a picture of T�a Leoni, and Neanderthal man (they don't look that much alike) plus links to the Salon.com story and the Margasak story on the Secret Decoder Ring page.

A final prehistoric item: In this week's "Science Times" section of the NY Times, a new view of the way a Neanderthal male looked - much closer to modern humans - was explored. The reporter asked the artist "whether a Neanderthal would stand out on a subway." The artist said, "Maybe not in New York, but everywhere else, he would."

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Copyright © 2001 Richard A. Galen

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