Wednesday Stuff

(Posting will still be off and on for a bit, by the way.)

OK, let me restate that I currently support our involvement in Libya because what I read is that we will be involved for "a matter of days, not weeks" according to the White House (and any comparison to Iraq is, I think, utterly ridiculous - we were asked to help along with France and the U.K., and we're not going to deploy troops). If any of this changes, though, you can be sure that I will object (and I respect those who currently have principled objections of their own).

According to this New York Times story, though, it seems that our "friends" the Chinese are concerned because the attack on Libya could bring on a "humanitarian disaster."

So the Chinese suddenly care about human rights? What's next, Mikey The Beloved defending health care reform?

Take a look at this clip from about the time of the Beijing Olympics three years ago, where ITN correspondent John Ray gets a first-hand look at China's supposed commitment to human rights on behalf of those protesting the freedom of Tibet (sorry for the lousy video quality). And rest assured that I could show you a lot worse, such as that country's treatment of their child Olympic athletes (that very phrase to me indicates that something is wrong) and those tortured in the name of "Falun Gong" (clips of which would absolutely turn your stomach)...



...and picking my favorite movie moment from Elizabeth Taylor? Well, this, from "A Place In The Sun" with Montgomery Clift may be it...you could also pick a scene from "Giant," "Butterfield 8," even "Cleopatra" (it wasn't her fault the film was too damn long), "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," and many others (for all the fighting between her and Burton, including their tiff that comprises just about all of "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?," there is still that breakthrough moment of tenderness at the end...she also very nearly saved the terminally creepy "Reflections In A Golden Eye" with Brando, but not quite).

Also, let's not forget that, when everybody was too busy Hating Teh Gay to realize that golden boy Rock Hudson had some "big disease with a little name," Liz and a handful of people stood by him, even when everybody gasped at the pictures of Hudson just before he died (and as wonderful as this clip is, it led up to the murder of Shelly Winters' character after all - RIP).