U2 Bombs the Charts

I don't know if "bomb" is being used in a metaphorically-correct manner, but the headline brings reassuring news nonetheless: America hasn't gone completely tone deaf.

Alexander the (not so) Great fails to conquer America's homophobes

With a headline like that, you know you're in for a bumpy ride.

I have never read such an obvious slam on Americans with no factual information used to qualify the argument. The first sentence of this article reads, "It has been ridiculed by critics and shunned by cinema-goers" which should explain why Alexander is a flop. The negative buzz has been reported for weeks. Yet being celebrity-worshippers and unscrupulous Brits, the authors soon change their tune in search of an ulterior agenda:

"Alexander has proved to be the Thanksgiving weekend's biggest flop, and while it is a portrait of a legendary leader who ruled far-away lands more than 300 years before the birth of Christ, it has brutally exposed the cultural and moral divide which slices America in two."

You guessed it...these sassy yet refined brits lay the blame for the film's flop at those most barbarian in the American banana republic:

"...conservative Christians have loudly denounced Alexander as 'pro-gay' propaganda from Tinseltown, insisting that Alexander was a firmly hetero hero. To add to the film's problems, the public has stayed away from what was to be the big movie of the Thanksgiving weekend."

Really? I don't recall seeing Pat Robertson or Jerry Fallwell convulsing over this film.

"The three-hour, big budget epic, starring Colin Farrell, Colin Farrell's shockingly bad blond hair-do and Angelina Jolie has dared to suggest what most historians have long taken for granted - that Alexander was bisexual. And that gets rather different responses in different parts of the US."

Or more appropriately, such a response would have been probable had Warner Bros. chose to promote the film in that manner. It might have actually brought some bodies into the theater. Nobody with a life realized there was any potential of guy-on-guy action.

"The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation says the $150m (£79m) film breaks new ground for a big budget epic because it shows boyhood friend Hephaestion 'as the true love of Alexander's life'. A line from the film says: 'Alexander was defeated only once - by Hephaestion's thighs.'"

Wait a minute...no quote from a conservative but a willing analysis from GLAAD? They wouldn't dare do that twice in the same article would they?

"But conservative Christians have loudly denounced Alexander as 'pro-gay' propaganda from Tinseltown, insisting that Alexander was a firmly hetero hero. To add to the film's problems, the public has stayed away from what was to be the big movie of the Thanksgiving weekend."

The writers later cite an "online critic" who goes unnamed...hardly an equal counterpoint to the views of the largest gay lobby in the U.S. As Bernard Goldberg asserts, the media doesn't bat an eye when it comes to contacting folks like GLAAD; to them, that group represents the mainstream of American life. Religious conservatives are seen as a fringe group. Of course, had they contacted conservatives for comment the story would have evaporated. Perhaps they did, saw that nobody cared and decided to go with the story as written. Either way, this article is yellow journalism at it's laziest.

Alexander flopped because it sucks in an artistic sense (not a literal sense) and these two Brit-twits can't handle it. The litmus test of what America can tolerate will not be based upon how many of us in red states go to see a bloated three-hour crapfest.

Ebersol injured in private jet crash

To this day, the smaller the plane, the less likely I am to board it. Although Ebersol is a bigshot who probably doesn't know who the hell I am, my prayers are with him and his family.