Just A Little More Morphine For The King, Please

Following the dust-up between Christopher Hitchens and David Seidler, who wrote "The King's Speech," I learned this bit of history, which didn't make the movie. It's Seidler talking to HuffPo's Patricia Zohn:

The only cut I still regret is the exclusion of King George V's euthanasia. The old King was dying, but not on time. Everyone wanted the news to first appear in the respectable Times and on the BBC, not via the disreputable afternoon papers who might mention David's (Edward VIII) scandalous affair with American twice divorcee Wallis Simpson. The deadline (no pun intended) was midnight. The King was inconveniently lingering so they hurried him along with an injection into the jugular vein of a mixture of morphine and cocaine. I felt that including this not only gave more drama to the sequence but also demonstrated the immense power of the new media, which is what Bertie was going to have to face. Although the scene was filmed, Tom and the producers ultimately felt it was such a controversial subject it might overshadow the rest of the film. They're probably right but I still regret the cut.

It seems to me it demonstrated the immense power of the king's doctors. I doubt if anyone forgot about Mrs. Simpson just because the Times got the exclusive. One of the most powerful moments in the somewhat overrated movie was Bertie's outrage at the suggestion by his speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), that his brother's love life might someday put him on the throne. "That's treason!" shouts the dutiful royal, marvelously portrayed by Colin Firth. Meanwhile, there are the palace attendants in the shadows, doing what they do.

Mutton Much

My exercise after seeing "Just Go With It," starring Adam Sandler as a plastic surgeon and Jennifer Aniston as his single-mother assistant, was identifying a redeeming, unblemished feature. Sandler and Aniston had good chemistry in a couple of scenes -- but their winsomeness was nearly crushed by a leaden script. Aniston's kids, played by Bailee Madison and Griffin Gluck, were talented and cute -- but for some reason ten-year-old Bailee spent most of the movie using a tiresome British accent. Nicole Kidman was great as Aniston's college nemesis, with Dave Matthews as her too-good-to-be-true husband, reputedly the inventor of the iPod -- but that deteriorated into mockery of gay men. Rachel Dratch and Kevin Nealon were funny as plastic surgery victims -- but the depth of the film's insights on the subject was purely cosmetic.

You want unmitigated praise? The Hawaiian resort where the hi jinks unfolded looked very nice. And Nick Swardson, pretending to be a sheep salesman for reasons too complicated to explain, had a great moment after a young woman ran into the restaurant where he and Brooklyn Decker, who plays Sandler's girlfriend, were eating and said that her sheep was sick.What do you do with a sick sheep? Body slams and mouth-to-mouth, of course.

More broadly applied, the Farrelly brothers-style lunacy of Swardson's improvised lamb chops might've resuscitated the movie. Sandler was pretending to be married to win Decker; Aniston was pretending to be his husband; Kidman was still pretending to be all that. A mistaken-identity plot and great cast ought to have made for a lot of fun. But "Just Go With It," a title with no discernible connection to the story, ended up being a description of a comic road not taken.

A Jug Of Wine, Moose Stew, And Thou

From the leaked manuscript of an ex-Palin aide, an explanation of how John McCain, and the GOP, ended up with Sarah Palin:

["Weekly Standard" editor Bill Kristol had] gone to Alaska on a cruise in June, 2007 and sat across the table from the sexy future of the Republican Party. Much as President Bush, when looking into Vlad Putin‘s eyes, saw his soul, Kristol understood that deliverance for his beloved GOP lived inside this stunning, five foot five inch Aphrodite from Wasilla. Due Diligence was conducted over moose stew, red wine, and winky charm. He did not need to ask about foreign policy or current event expertise. He saw a winner. Kristol began bongo-drumming her out-Mavericking John McCain virtues in every venue at his disposal... In public and to his contacts within the McCain camp, he made it known that she was not only legitimate, but the only intelligent choice if McCain hoped to have any chance in the upcoming election.

Hat tip to The Daily Dish

When "Obama's Not A Christian" is A Good Thing

Liberal media watcher Paul Waldman:

[B]oth [Barack Obama's] most fervent opponents and some of his most fervent supporters think the same thing -- that for political purposes, Obama has hid his true beliefs. Many secular progressives want to believe that in his heart he's just like them, and many religious conservatives want to believe that in his heart he's as alien from them as he could be.

Rush Rumsfeld

The former secretary of defense on President Obama:

I think he has made a practice of trying to apologize for America. I personally am proud of America.

A practice? I'm sure Rumsfeld has memcons to back that up.

Zio-Americans

Israel is hopeful about peace with post-revolutionary Egypt but doesn't like some of what it hears, according to its ambassador to the U.S., Michael B. Oren:

[W]e would be irresponsible to ignore the Muslim Brotherhood, which, although a minority party in Egypt, is the best-organized and -financed opposition group. “Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny,” the Brotherhood’s supreme guide recently sermonized, pledging to raise “a jihadi generation that pursues death just as its enemies pursue life.”

And the threat to peace comes not only from religious extremists but also from some of the revolution’s secular voices. The Kafaya democratic movement, for example, once circulated a petition to nullify the peace treaty. A spokesman for the April 6 Youth Movement recently demanded the halting of Egyptian natural gas shipments to Israel, which would cut off 40 percent of our supply. And last week the reformist leader Ayman Nour declared that “the era of Camp David is over.”

I Knew It

The iPad is useless.

There Goes That Excuse

So-called midlife crises occur because of life events, not a person's age, according to Brandeis University psychologist Margie Lachman:

[C]rises are usually spurred by some event that can happen at most any age, such as a career setback, the death of a friend or relative, or an illness.

Maybe The Senators Can Help At Coffee Hour

Wisconsin churches offer sanctuary to legislators trying to avoid voting on a bill that would eliminate most of public employees' collective bargaining rights.

St. John's Sky