Ron Silver, RIP

Roger Simon, Hollywood writer and blogger, remembers actor and activist Ron Silver:

We had a close relationship that came from a strange confluence of events. Perhaps the best movie that either of us worked on was the same one. – Enemies, A Love Story. But that wasn’t the real reason – it was politics. We had stayed friends after Enemies, as movie folks sometimes do when they have worked on something together that was successful, critically or commercially. We discussed other projects, but our relationship was fairly superficial then and gradually we drifted apart during the nineties.

Then 9/11 came and Ron and I were thrown together once again. We were 9/11 Democrats. We talked on the phone about our journey and the alienation we were feeling from some our friends, but we didn’t come face-to-face until the Republican Convention of 2004. I was a blogger there and feeling rather weird – an old leftie gone right – but there was Ron, far more out than I was, speaking to the entire convention. And he was brilliant. The man could speak in public as well as almost any politician and he had more intellectual background than almost all of them too. He swept the convention audience off their feet.

Ron and I renewed our friendship in the corridors of Madison Square Garden that year and that friendship became faster than it ever was. I think I knew better than most what he was going through in the political sphere, had some sense of his feelings when confronting his peers in the entertainment industry.

Michelle Malkin has the transcript of his 2004 speech to the Republican National Convention:

We are again engaged in a war that will define the future of humankind.

Responding to attacks on our soil, America has led a coalition of countries
against extremists who want to destroy our way of life and our values.

This is a war we did not seek.

This is a war waged against us.

This is a war to which we had to respond.

History shows that we are not imperialists . . .but we are fighters for freedom and democracy.

Rest in peace.

McCain speech text

National Review Online has posted the whole thing in the Corner.

Equal time?

JB Van Hollen has been blogging from the Republican National Convention. He's even had guest bloggers.

Ht: Lance Burri

I have seen the future

Last night my cell phone was buzzing with text messages from a friend of mine who has been active in conservative causes but never really happy with the party. I think last night was the first night since President Reagan was in office she felt that the party was actually trying to reach out to people like her. And it wasn't just that Governor Palin is a woman, but it was the message in her speech last night. Reform, smaller government, strong defense.

I've said it before but it's worth repeating: Palin's nomination for vice president is about the future of the Republican Party. And here's what I saw in her speech last night that indicated to me the bright future of the Republican Party.

For those of you who did not see the speech yet, here's the transcript.

Here, too, is my take on the media and the Left's treatment of Palin since the announcement. I'm just simply shocked and appalled.

Joe Lieberman at the Republican Convention

Big eight

The Hill is reporting Senator Barack Obama's poll bounce was eight points. That was before McCain announced his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and before the Republican National Convention.

Oh yeah, and before the next Biden eruption.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, John McCain, Gallup

Next week's convention - more booze, less marijuana

According to Wikipedia,

"Seeing pink elephants" is a euphemism for drunken hallucination, caused by alcoholic hallucinosis or delirium tremens. The first recorded use of the term is by Jack London in 1913, who describes one sort of alcoholic in the autobiographical John Barleycorn as "the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers."

Since I believe everything I read on the internet and I'm not a big fan of Jack London, sounds reasonable to me.

Attendees of the convention in Minnesota next week will be happy to learn that National Geographic has completely debunked the myth of the elephant in the wild getting drunk on fermented fruit.

Those wishing to see elephants drunk in an unnatural setting, say St. Paul, will be happy to learn that it would take approximately a half-gallon of ethanol to get an elephant drunk, according to National Geographic. Or the number of shots to get through an Obama speech.

The Webtender has five elephant drinks for the occasion next week. Enjoy the convention.

1. Elephant Lips (Ordinary Drink. Alcoholic.)
Ingredients: Dark rum, Creme de Banane, Lemon juice
2. Elephant Shake (Milk / Float / Shake. Alcoholic.)
Ingredients: Vanilla ice-cream, Milk, Amarula Cream
3. Pink Elephant Ears (Punch / Party Drink. Alcoholic.)
Ingredients: Vodka, Pink lemonade, Lime, Ice
4. Pink Elephant (Ordinary Drink. Alcoholic.)
Ingredients: Grenadine, Gin
5. Pink Elephants On Parade (Cocktail. Alcoholic.)
Ingredients: Vodka, Pink lemonade, Sugar, Midori melon liqueur

Technorati Tags: Friday Afternoon Cocktail, Republican National Convention, Elephant, Pink Elephants, National Geographic

Cheesehead refugees

I had hoped to be in Minneapolis/St Paul myself next week, but a sequence of events this summer conspired against me. It's a conspiracy, I tell ya! Unfortunately family and work priorities had to come first.

As someone who has been to a Republican National Convention (New Orleans '88), I can tell you they are a blast. Just to show I'm not bitter or jealous of those local bloggers that are going, let me assure their spouses that I'm sure there won't be nearly as many hookers in St. Paul as there were in New Orleans.

Anyway, it looks like Owen Robinson, Lance Burri, Christian Schneider and Sean Hackbarth are going. (Looking at the list, I'm hoping we'll all be spared the live-blogging from the front row of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion.)

Abraham and John

For those of you history buffs, on this date in 1860 Abraham Lincoln became the Republican Party nominee for president. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote in Team of Rivals,

Once the vote was made unanimous, the celebration began in earnest. A man stationed on the roof of the Wigwam shouted the news of Lincooln's nomination, along with that of Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for Vice President, to the thousands waiting on the street. Cannons were fired and "between 20,000 and 30,000 were yelling and shouting at once." The festivities continued through the night. "The Press and Tribune building," one of the paper's reporters wrote, "was illuminated from `turret to foundation,' by the brilliant glare of a thousand lights which blazed from windows and doors." Shouldering the symbolic fence rails that Lincoln had supposedly split, Republicans paraded through the streets to the music of a dozen bands.

I don't think Senator McCain is going to get quite that reception.

Happy Birthday George Will

Happy Birthday to Chicago Cubs fan, conservative columnist, and television personality George Will. My brush with greatness, or my biggest geek moment:

I was in New Orleans for the Republican National Convention in 1992. I got on the elevator at the Superdome and there in the back of the elevator was George Will. And he saw that I recognized him. I wanted to say something, anything, but the only words that came to mind were, "You're George Will." And of course, since he already knew that, I didn't bother telling him.

So we just kinda stared at each other until it was time to get off the elevator. Then I turned to someone with whom I was going to the convention and said what were still the only words that came to my starstruck mind, "That was George Will."

And she said, "Who's George Will?"