Those of you who live in the SF Bay Area would weep if you could see the original BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, for those who don't know) map as the system was being planned in the mid-60s. I mean, it was going to go EVERYWHERE. I'm not sure why, but someone came up with the brilliant idea of taxing individual counties. Well of course several counties (chief among them Santa Clara County, aka Silicon Valley) voted to opt out of the tax scheme in the early 70s.

Some would argue that hindsight is 20/20, but I know for a fact that at the time prominent local businessmen like David Packard were arguing that BART was needed in Santa Clara County because he correctly deduced that "technology" was the wave of the future. Almost no one listened to the man, so we have the absurdity of not being able to take BART into San Jose. Now they're trying to do it with sky-high property values. It's nuts.

Really, who gives a shit?

After 28 years I'm not the least bit surprised by the painful imbecility of your average Republican functionary.

Guess I'll have to be the Bad Guy...again.

I was a fan of King's in my early teenage years, but was lucky enough to have outstanding Eng. Lit. faculty at my high school. Through their good offices I was introduced to Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Steinbeck in a way that made me understand their value, that made them resonate. Great work resonates. With the possible exception of "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption", nothing that King has written resonates. "Insomnia" comes close, as do the first three "Dark Tower" novels. But you know that cliche about horseshoes and hand grenades.

I would agree that "The Shining" is his best book overall, and as a genre classic it deserves to last. So does "'Salems Lot", a truly creepy book, the kind that Lovecraft always tried and failed to write.

But that's it. Stephen King's success has been an example of America's cultural decline. That such a lousy writer - even of genre fiction - would one day be worth half a billion dollars says lots of sad things about our collective literacy. Which brings me back to high school.

When I was 16 I read "The Stand", and liked it. But something about the central metaphor of Book One struck me as facile, even as a teenager. The obviousness of Randall Flagg spreading "Captain Tripps" through the "bloodstream" of America's interstate highway system. This is undergrad stuff, folks. It's not a bad metaphor, just not a terribly good one. And yet it still hooks people almost thirty years later. Sad.

I got bored with King mid-way through college. As I was immersed in the literary canon his stuff just didn't hold up. How can "The Stand" hold a candle to "Moby Dick"? Or "The Sound and the Fury"? And as his later novels have become worse, as he has phoned it in again and again, it's become obvious that the only reason he keeps going is to provide product for Stephen King Incorporated. And of course such success has to indicate quality, does it not? Of course; so here come the critics, panting, to the party. Nothing more contemporarily American than that.

This is "Fame" without boobies and prances through Central Park.

Like many of you, I choked up when I saw the old gang together again. I think that was the intended effect.

Berkeley Breathed is, in my humble opinion, the greatest cartoonist this nation has ever seen. He has been laugh-out-loud funny, chuckle-worthy and deep, sometimes all in the same strip. His work reminds many of us of our youth, regardless of our age, as well it should. There is sun in his pen.

It leads to stinkiness. Seriously.

...I must say thaty I'm deeply offended by your comments about Wilkins. The fact is that KTVU 2 went "superstation" (available via cable) in 1977, and it is arguable that Wilkins' choice of showing anime on "Captain Cosmic" helped start that trend in the United States. At least that's what I've read about it (he saw how popular the stuff was while vacationing in Hawaii). That means Wilkins was hugely influential, and deserves respect for that, irrespective of whether he was ever an ad man for a TV station.

But whatever he was, he is now dying from late-stage Alzheimer's.

So shame on you.

...was left out of the original release.

FR. KARRAS

Why Reagan? Why a little girl?

FR. MARRIN

To drive us to despair. To make us

believe that God doesn't love us.

About the list...

I think Abel Ferara's remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" finally gets it right, the creepily sexual side to the idea of being "changed."

Also, I would add the following to the list:

1. "H-Man" - Nasty Japanese movie about blobs invading Tokyo. VERY realistic special effects.

2. "Phantoms" - I would say this movie has some of the best sound effects work of any movie I've ever seen. And the cast is amazing!

3. "The Raft" - The second segment of the Stephen King anthology "Creepshow." Loved how the giant amoeba got the kid in the end.

4. "Jacob's Ladder" - There has not been a better movie about death. Ever.

...the real scandal is that more and more banks are zeroing out people's credit card balances. So for example if they gave you a credit increase two years ago that took your limit from $3000 to $5000, and you've used $2000 of it, THAT becomes your new limit. It's fucking outrageous. For years I've been telling the banks that finance my two credit cards "NO, I don't want a limit increase!" Now the fuckers are zeroing out the limits they offered in the first place, precisely when many people are struggling.

Meanwhile, $900 billion and counting is handed over to bail out Goldman Sachs, Et Al. Our system is seriously fucked in the ass!