It's not that I don't think Obama's a fine person and all that. It's that he hasn't accomplished anything yet, and in particular we're still in two wars, so how has he engendered peace? And this cannot possibly help his credibility, to get such a huge honor when he hasn't really done anything to earn it. That's setting him up for failure and looking foolish. If I were him, I'd respectfully decline it; that would be the smartest thing to do. This only feeds opposition charges that he's all hype.

Granted, it's not as egregious as Henry Kissinger murdering thousands of people and then getting the Peace Prize. It's an award many have gotten for iffy reasons and the most political of the Nobels. But it seems like a very bad idea and I don't think he should accept it.

It just looks so bad.

I notice there's an effort to make people who think this is weird look like they're all cons. Look, I'm very left, and I think this is inappropriate. It just makes him look like someone who keeps getting unearned honors without actually paying any dues.

He has neglected the needs of pretty much the whole city for the sake of making downtown a big, loud, obnoxious showplace. This is a city that's been in a recession since at least 2001--this new one was just a dip in what was already the case. I suffered through it for 5.5 years(my second time living there--the previous time was Daley's first seven years) and got the hell out before it collapsed altogether. When I first came to Chicago, it was Washington's last year in office, and I remember it being a vastly different place. Always corrupt, but liveable and still a working/middle-class place. Daley let the city go condo-mad more than any other, pushed the working class to the west, tried to make Chicago into a yuppie city--basically trying to fill anything visible near the lake up to about North Ave. with the demographic of Lincoln Park, yet still neglecting it. He has sharpened the divide between rich and poor more than any other mayor since, well, his dad, and I don't remember it originally being as predatory and vicious as it was the last time I lived there. I mean, I actually felt(for good reason, unfortunately) under threat, just as a single person trying to make a living. (Of course, that might have had something to do with having been two floors down from a notorious office shooting a few years ago this December; that leaves you jittery)

So I also can't say I would feel too sorry for the financial ruin of the city that would result if they got it. They're the ones who've let him stay in office all this time.

Bush no longer poses a threat to our society. I say we drop all these torture investigations and move on.

What, do you not see the logic? Well, now you know how confused your idea that it's an old case and Polanski doesn't pose a societal threat, and therefore it doesn't matter as law, is.

She was 13 years old. Unless you're in some deep woods in Appalachia, no one considers that an age of consent.

On one hand: I love Polanski's films. REPULSION, FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE TENANT and most of all his MACBETH...these are some of my favorite movies. His "urban paranoia" has been a huge influence upon my work.

And one must admit, this is a man who has had the luck of the damned. It's not a small thing to start out your life with your family murdered by Hitler, then eventually come to Hollywood, become successful, marry a (from everything I've heard) genuinely nice, beautiful young star(whom he did cheat on, admittedly), who becomes pregnant with your kid, only to have the freaking MANSON FAMILY kill them.

Polanski had two of the most famous monsters of the 20th century destroy his life and survived. That is something to give one perspective.

But obviously it would leave one troubled as hell.

So it's sad to me that he then chose to participate in his own destruction by raping a child. Which can't be excused by any of the above.

I can still love his films. I can empathize with the crushing loss that he has suffered, that no person should ever suffer, certainly not on that scale. (Seriously, Hitler and Manson; just thinking about it makes my head spin) But I can also hold in my mind, at the same time, sadness and contempt for his having done that.

You can recognize all these facts and not think they cancel each other out.

Wait, you're telling me people bother to pirate network TV? Why?

One reason for that is because none have any talent. Yes, that's right, none. Go ahead and argue, folks, and then tell me who, and I'll guarantee you that each of them can easily be mistaken for another.

The second? Nobody can wait for this decade to be done, and there will never be any nostalgia for the "Naughts."

Her allegations could be perfectly true, AND she could be trying to promote her book. The two do not cancel each other out.

I have a hard time believing anyone would be so public about this if at least they, themselves, didn't believe it were so. And frankly, given what we know already about JP and his family and how the children in that family turned out(I do not understand how Chynna turned out relatively healthy), I have a hard time NOT believing it.