Crawling Out From Under

The deluge of election night has finally petered out though it did make for interesting viewing.  Obama will have to deal with a fully Republican congress for the nest two year for which he has no one to blame but himself and his failed agenda.  My fervent hope is that the Republicans don’t take this as a mandate for their policies. This was America standing up and saying we’re sick of a Washington where the spirit of compromise and getting the people’s work done has been lost to the need to settle scores and win. 

If the Republicans take this as an opportunity to show the people they can govern effectively instead of simply fighting with Obama they could take giant steps towards cementing this win.  Obama needs to finally leave his community activist cocoon and realize the catastrophic level of this message.  I believe in America and hope these two sides can get to work of governing instead of competing.

Meanwhile, In Panama - PanaGal On Parade
My Sister in Law in a Parade in Panama Yesterday

My wife called in the middle of the afternoon to report she had inadvertently left the Wonder Pooch outside longer than expected for his daily sun tanning session.  He’d used the free time to fully explore the forest lining our back yard and returned scoring fairly high on the pungency scale.  Buddy was blissfully unaware his woodland adventures and accompanying olfactory levels would lead to one of his least favorite activities – a bath.

Buddy After Losing his Fight to Enter the Tub

My wife expected me to give him his bath outside since she had used most of the post-ballot box day to raise the pristine level of the house.  She’s nothing if not a softy though when she saw the outside temperature when I got home.  So Buddy and I repaired to the whirlpool bathtub.  He refused to jump in and used all of his athletic prowess to make lifting him into the tuba true chore.  He then discovered warm water was a lot more fun than the cold garden hose  and begrudgingly allowed cleaning.  It took me twice as long to clean up the tub afterwards than it did to clean the dog.

Okay - This Isn't So Bad

Date night last night so we escaped the blanket of election coverage to see The Nightcrawler.  Jake Gyllenhaal is mesmerizingly evil in this as a sociopathic loser who starts work as a video news hound who haunts the late nights of Los Angeles.  He’s glib to the point of obnoxiousness through an addiction to internet education – all form with no moral content.  This is a thinly distinguished but punishing indictment of America’s fascination with the “news byte” and “if it bleeds it leads”.  Gyllenhaal’s character could have easily morphed into a serial killer with a complete lack of any conscience.

There was no one remotely likable in the entire cast but this movie is still very watchable because of Gyllenhaal performance and the texture of late night L.A.  Before last night I never spent an entire movie hoping a wall would fall on a character.  Everybody knows what a huge fan of television news I am and they come off even worse (if that’s possible) as Gyllenhaal’s enabler.  This was the best acting I’ve seen in years as his character doesn’t show a smallest scintilla of remorse or conscience.  Like the scenes he stalked for the TV news he was impossible to look away from and it was kind of scary.