The Wily Filipino

How to Choke on Your Food.

Well, for comics fans, anyway. Eat your lunch -- doesn't matter what it is -- and then read this, from an article on Vertigo in the New York Times:

...shooting is scheduled to begin this fall on the Warner Brothers movie "Constantine," starring Keanu Reeves and based on Vertigo's "Hellblazer."

Why do I smell something as bad as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

The other piece of bad news was this statement:

Vertigo titles like "Sandman," "Preacher" and "Transmetropolitan" are doing better as backlist graphic novels than they ever did as monthlies, and that is the direction [Vertigo editor] Ms. [Karen] Berger wants to pursue.

This is bad news as well, because it seems rather counter-intuitive: the monthlies surely depend on constant readership to keep them afloat (unless your last name happens to be Ennis or Morrison), and if prospective buyers simply wait until the collected books come out (and they come out within a year or two, it seems), then Vertigo seems to be shooting themselves in the foot.

Speaking of shooting themselves in the foot, or choking on your food -- you folks didn't think I'd let this go without a cheap-labor conservative reference, did you? -- here's Condoleeza Rice in a "Nightline" interview:

"We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein ... had either direction or control of 9/11," Rice said when asked about the public perception of a link.

"What we have said is that this is someone who supported terrorists, helped to train them (and) was a threat in this region that we were not prepared to tolerate."

Defending Saddam's ouster, she said he represented a threat in "a region from which the 9/11 threat emerged."

The Reuters writer reminds us of certain facts:

As they campaigned for support to oust Saddam, Bush and aides accused the former Iraqi president of being linked to al Qaeda, often in ways that recalled the suicide hijackings that killed about 3,000 people.

"You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," Bush said in September 2002.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in congressional testimony, "There have been a number of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda over the years. We know Saddam has ordered acts of terror himself."

Actually, the real answer is "I don't know." Check out Dick Cheney's interview on "Meet The Press:"

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know.

Posted by the wily filipino at September 16, 2003 10:07 PM