PlameGate Primer
Rove-a-Palooza

A week or so ago, I was at a dinner party and the discussion turned to politics and this blog. Many of the folks round the table hadn't been to Cracks (not surprising), but most of them hadn't even yet visited a political blog. And as I was in the midst of trying to get these folks up to speed on the whole Niger Yellowcake/Joe Wilson/Valery Plame/Bob Novak/Karl Rove/Scooter Libby affair, I realized just how complicated this whole thing is--especially to folks who aren't blog junkies like myself (or who are married to blog junkies like myself and get to hear rantings and mumblings from their husband/wife at the keyboard).

Thus, I'm quite happy to see that MSNBC's Chris Matthews and his Hardball program have a very cogent and easy to follow description of both the timeline of this affair as well as the ramifications of it--both in where it all started and where the indictments could fall. Head on over to Crooks and Liars to check it out in one of several video formats. I'm feeling a tad under the weather, so I'm hoping that they post a transcript of the segment online by tomorrow (or hopefully I'll rebound from this logey-ness to do a bit of transcription tomorrow).

Speaking of the telly, Mrs. F and I have just taken a major step (I'm not sure if it's backward or forward): we've killed our TV. Within the last hour, some folks came by and carted out the enormous and massively heavy 36-inch RCA CRT television that I've had now for about four years (as well as its entertainment center shell). We've donated it to the Croft Place Townhome community building (this is the affordable housing construction project that Mrs. F has been managing this past year; it's been finished since this summer and is full of residents), where they'll have community movie nights for folks, and especially for the 57 kids! I'm starting to wonder if this is really the right thing to do. I mean, what am I gonna do about watching Lost, the greatest TV show in the history of TV (well, it's pretty darn good). Or CSI, Mrs. F's fave show?

Well, we do have a partial solution coming down the pike soon: I'm planning on purchasing a 27-inch flat screen LCD TV that will be housed in our home office and will be used for watching DVD movies (a requirement of mine). We're going to give the rest of broadcast TV a rest for awhile and see if we miss it. (I've already arranged for friends to record Lost for me; we'll be working on a CSI connection for Mrs. F). And frankly, I'm really hoping I don't miss it. I'm not a prude and I'm not a conservative culture warrior, but I gotta say that it's been bugging me how much content there is on the networks and cable networks that deals in grisly death and violent acts that leave emotional and physical scars (cop shows, lawyer shows, medical shows--that's all there seems to be to choose from sometimes). Then again, I'm a bit of a hypocrite--take a look at our fave shows. But it still feels like overload to me, and it'll feel good to have a bit of a respite and ratchet up my liberal snootery.