Wait just a damn second. Smokey is no father! So whose naked children is he happily spying on in this "officially licensed" scene? Is this a PSA for forest fires or stranger danger?

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UGA football legend (and gameshow-host Donald Trump's best "see-I'm-not-racist-I-have-a-black-friend" friend) Herschel Walker won the Georgia Republican party primary for U.S. Senate with over 801,000 votes (68%). He literally won every single county in the state. He trounced his closest opponent, Gary Black (13%), who has been the state Agriculture Commissioner for the past 11 years! If I was writing headlines, this would read: Football Culture Trumps Agriculture.*

Now Walker will head into the general election to face sitting senator Raphael Warnock. So far Walker — who it should be noted has a net worth upwards of $29 million yet has sent me, a UGA football season ticket holder, at least 7 letters asking for campaign contributions — has refused to describe any specifics of his platform (other than "Teamwork good" and "Democrats evil") or debate any of his Republican rivals, instead relying purely on the goodwill garnered in college in the 1980s. And it's easy to see why he's so reluctant to speak up. When asked on friendly Fox News what he would do to prevent future mass murder of elementary school students like the 19 who died this week in Texas — Walker's home state for the past decade, right up until he decided to run for Senator of Georgia — he said this:

You know, Cain killed Abel and that's a problem that we have. And I said what we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation. What about getting a department that can look at young men/women that's looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that? And we can stop that that way.

Yes, poor Abel would still be alive today if Adam had only kept his eyes on TikTok instead of Eve's fig leaf.

Besides, Cain killed Abel with a rock, the Daniel Defense DDM4® V7® AR15 with Improved Flash Suppressor rifle of its day. No one would ever try to ban rocks, so why would you want to ban 30-round magazine automatic rifles? (According to Christian dogma, the rock was given to Cain by The Devil, which I'm sure Walker would insist in no way reflects on for-profit gun manufacturers selling military-designed long guns to 18-year-old civilians.)

Sadly, I think there's every chance that bible-thumping, gun lobby-supporting, social media-spying Walker will win a seat in the U.S. Senate on nostalgic name recognition alone. And if that is the case, Georgians will be getting exactly the representation in government they deserve. That's democracy in action, folks!

* While Trump did indeed endorse Walker, it's not like Black wasn't trying his damnedest to earn his evil overlord's favor too, including refusing to admit that Biden is the lawfully elected president of the United States. Trump's endorsement in this race means far less than Walker's 82 touchdowns as a Georgia Bulldog.

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Finishing out the list of movies from September:

82. (1020.) The Kremlin Letter (1970)
I really enjoyed this suspenseful spy thriller. It's far more le Carre than Ludlum. I have my doubts that real spying was ever like this, but it's still more believable than a Tom Clancy movie.

83. (1021.) The Million Dollar Duck (2016)
No matter what that title makes you think, this is a documentary about painting and stamp collecting. With ducks. It's shallow and won't teach you anything about craftsmanship or art appreciation, but I still enjoyed it.

84. (1022.) Skin Game (1971)
Let me sum up: con man James Garner travels through the American frontier selling escape artist Lou Gossett Jr. to gullible slave owners, a plan that works great until Ed Asner shows up and drags LGJr to a plantation in Texas. It obviously owes a debt to Garner's Maverick, though the archaic sexual politics and flippant treatment of slavery tends to drag this comedy of errors down.

85. (1023.) The Silencers (1966)
The only person who thought it would be a good idea to cast Dean Martin as James Bond must have been Dean Martin. He's too old for the action and doesn't play it serious enough to sell the jokey dialog. I'm sure the director was aiming for camp, a la television's Batman. It doesn't get there. (And if I thought the sexual politics of 1971 were bad... ugh.)

That's all the "new to me" movies I watched in September, but there's one more movie that deserves a mention.

The Player (1992)

I first saw The Player when it was released on video in 1992, and I loved it. But I haven't seen it in years, so I recorded it off TCM to see how it held up over time. (Some movies you once loved just aren't that great two decades later. I'm looking at you, Masters of the Universe.) Turns out it was even better than I remembered. Noir crime meets behind-the-scenes Hollywood meets meta-text, all with a stellar cast. Still a great film.

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You may have noticed that in that last post (Feb. 20), Superman was hiding behind a rock on the Action Comics and Superman covers. You may have asked yourself why the Man of Steel was spying on Bizarro's love life. Turns out that's just the way Superman rolls.

And it's probably justified. It seems that Superman's supporting cast can't go anywhere without getting into some improbable fix that only an invulnerable interplanetary alien with the powers of flight, speed, and strength (among others) can extricate them from. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen got into so much trouble, Superman had to give him a beeper.

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Some friends Superman has there. What happens when Superman isn't paying enough attention? That's right: Bizarro attacks.

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Lois wears bridal fashions like I wear Batman t-shirts. She appears in a bridal gown on 9 different covers (twice on issue 37 and four times on issue 86!) of her 137 issue run in Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane. Make that 10 covers, if you count her red cloak worn during her marriage to Satan -- yes, Satan -- on the cover of issue 103.

Meanwhile, Jimmy appears dressed as Superman on only 6 covers of the 163 issue run of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen. Seven covers, if you count Jimmy's remote control usage of a Superman robot on the cover of issue 9. In a rare guest appearance, Lois Lane manages to wear her fraying wedding gown when she weds Jimmy on the cover of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen issue 21, but Jimmy misses the golden opportunity and lamely wears a tux.

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Over on CNN.com today, they are running one story about how poorly people manage risk assessment in the modern world and another story on the fate of a missing woman who was found dead, trapped behind a bookshelf in her own house. Personally, I was amused by the irony. I think it's particularly comical that CNN, which like every other television news show thrives on fear mongering, would promote an argument from sister publication Time Magazine about how fearing the wrong things is a pointless endeavor that steals people's happiness and longevity. I guess we can only fear things so long as CNN (or its parent, Time Warner) tells us it's ok.

Just yesterday I was reading a story about the death of a girl in a Porsche on a California highway. That story was accompanied by pictures of the crash. You might think a girl must have lost her head to make the decision to swerve past another car while traveling at over 100 mph through a tollbooth. Turns out that she did. (Though it's hard to tell if that happened before or after the crash.) One of the posters on the message board pointed out that at the age of 18, the driver of the Porsche was unable to ascertain that her actions behind the wheel were likely to result in her demise. Isn't that what why we were shown Red Asphalt in high school?

Meanwhile, while the net is abuzz about the Russian spy who died from rare Polonium-210 radiation poisoning in London, traditional American news media (tv and newsprint) seem much more concerned about the fate of celebrity Michael Richards in the wake of his tirade against hecklers. I mean, who cares what happens to a spy (unless, of course, it's the latest James Bond)? Now that the hecklers are demanding an apology live on CNN talk shows (which were on at Moe's the other night while I was trying to eat "The Full Monty"), I think that everything has gone a little bit far. Especially when every news service seems willing to reproduce the cell phone video of the rant, but only after editing out the offending words. When mainstream America decides that it is more dangerous for a comedian to say the word "nigger" to a heckler than to be concerned about, well, anything else, that's probably indicative of our poor choice of acceptable risks.

And that's not to mention the war in Iraq (with potentially a new impending draft), federal budget deficits (with no social security guarantees), or Wal-Mart's report of its first sales decline in a decade (with other signs that America's retail giant may be floundering).

All in all, I probably shouldn't be too surprised about this failure to recognize and respond to risk in America. When the highest rated show on television is Dancing with the Stars while two-thirds of Americans are obese, it pretty much proves that no one is tuning in to watch the dancing.

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After a very busy weekend, I finally sat down and watched the new James Bond movie. I know that I promised that I would NEVER watch a Bond movie again after the insultingly awful Die Another Day, but I did get to watch this for free, borrowing a copy from a friend who enjoyed it, thereby giving the producers not a cent from my perusal of their film. And it was worth every penny I paid to see it.

In a word, Casino Royale is boring. (But at least it was long!) The first hour sets up the second hour. The second hour sets up the third. And the third hour is completely unnecessary.

Several people I know championed this film as a return to greatness for the Bond franchise. This is a second-rate action film passing itself off as a pedigree. Coop, if my opinion of your taste in movies needed any more nails, this one sealed the coffin. Don't let pretty eye-candy and some above average stunts distract you from the poor craftsmanship and complete lack of competent visual storytelling.

Sure, it was better than Die Another Day, but that doesn't say anything. So was Catwoman.

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Twenty-years ago in 1986, the Post-Walt Disney Co. used its regular Sunday night "The Wonderful World of Disney" on ABC to showcase a number of failed pilots of dubious creative distinction. Several of them stand out in my memory, including "Mr. Boogedy" and one called "Northstar" about an astronaut (played by Greg Evigan of "B.J. and The Bear" and "My Two Dads" fame) who gained super powers from sunlight through a freak cosmic accident. Of most importance to me, however, is the move called "I-Man," starring Scott Bakula in the title role. To the best of my knowledge, "I-Man" aired only once before disappearing into the black-hole of un-produced pilots.

"I-Man" was about a regular guy who was granted super-human powers of self-healing through a freak accident not-too far removed from the origin story of Daredevil or those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The only hitch in his alien-induced Wolverine healing trick is that perfect darkness is now fatal for him. Figuring that complete darkness is so rare that he has little to worry about for the rest of his unnatural life span, I-Man, short for Indestructible Man, naturally, decides to turn his powers to the unselfish causes of truth, justice, and American television.

Soon, I-Man has been discovered spying for the U.S. government, as was his wont to do, and is captured by the stereotypical dastardly rich villain. He finds himself (in true super-spy tradition) invited to breakfast with the villain and his co-conspirator, the treacherous she-spy turned traitor who was responsible for the revelation to the enemy of I-Man's amazing powers (by stabbing him in the arm with a knife!). When asked how he likes his eggs prepared, I-Man responds with a snarl towards his former comrade, "Benedict, as in Benedict Arnold!"

At this point in the dialogue, I, a 10 year-old boy, laughed and said something to the effect of, "he's angry that she stabbed him in the arm." My father wasted little time in correcting me with the observation that I-Man was not disappointed in being stabbed but rather upset that the enemy was now aware of his super-secret healing factor. Of course, my father was right, which I realized as the words were leaving his mouth.

Eventually, I-Man escapes the enemy's pitch-black death-trap, discovers that the she-spy turned traitor is only pretending to be a traitor and has been revealing information to the enemy so that she can pretend to be a double agent and learn the enemy's secrets (I'm sure that this tactic makes a lot of sense to women), and discovers that his son has the same healing powers that he does just in time for a happy ending.

But none of that last bit is really important, and I couldn't tell you what happened during the final portion of that film if my life depended on it.

Man, do I HATE to be wrong.

(On a related side-note, eggs Benedict were not named for Benedict Arnold, as this show would have impressionable young viewers believe. Instead, they appear to be named for nineteenth-century New York City native Lemuel C. Benedict.)

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