School shootings are hardly unique to America, alas. You can find instances of the phenomenon from Finland to Thailand, from Scotland to Yemen. School shootings have occurred in countries with stringent gun-control laws, and in countries with relatively lax gun-control laws.

If Wilson's piece was an attack on GOP cynicism, it was poorly written, and the basic point was not communicated. If, however, it was a personal attack against Palin, then the point came across well enough. (The same criticism may be made of Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment; Obama may not have meant to call Palin a pig, but his audience definitely viewed his remark in that context, and responded accordingly.)

Wilson's article as a whole seemed to me less sexist than crass: The language was uncivil, intended to offend as wide a swath of readers as possible. Her argument, to the extent she had one, struck me as deeply misguided: Feminism has always been multi-faceted; it cannot be reduced to a crude, ideological litmus test.

I cannot determine Wilson's intent in writing the piece, and frankly I'm not sure I care to, but this list of 19 smears was not a case of words taken out of context. It was clumsy at best, vile at worst.

I wonder what Obama would say about the 141-point stock surge today. Two or three more days like this, and yesterday's stock slide will be little more than a memory. Of course, it's unlikely that those two or three days will occur within the next week, but today's market bounce indicates that the overall state of the economy is still strong. Meanwhile, the price of oil continues to fall, and the dollar is regaining strength. So much, then, for that "final verdict."

As for the need for market reform, the failure of Lehman Bros., the sale of Merrill Lynch and the impending restructuring of AIG suggest that the financial market is capable of reforming itself quite efficiently, without governmental interference. Even in the best possible case, governmental reform will be a day late and a dollar short -- since by its very nature government cannot respond to a crisis as quickly as private investors (that is to say, ordinary people like you and me) can.

Neither McCain nor Obama have responded in a rational manner to yesterday's market dip. The media coverage has served rather to reinforce Americans' economic illiteracy than to correct it. But Obama's rhetoric -- in a period of moderate economic growth, no less -- has been so alarmist and unwarranted that it raises valid concerns about his grasp of reality.

Well, if money is what you're looking for ... how about the evangelical indie FIREPROOF, shot for half a million dollars (with help from a Baptist church in Albany, Georgia), distributed by Samuel Goldwyn, marketed sub rosa in thousands of Christian churches, and on its way to a projected box-office take of about 30 million? I haven't seen the film -- it's yet another Christian movie where praying to Jesus magically solves every problem except for killing the crabgrass on our hero's front lawn, so I'm inclined to stay away. But hey, FIREPROOF stars Kirk Cameron, and it's making a small fortune even before it lingers like the undead in those Wal-Mart DVD bins.

Huzzah for "Proustian meditations," which are now as common as Oreo Double Stufs.

I just received my box set of Budd Boetticher's Ranown westerns, and I'm hoping they'll provide me with conservative comfort food for the next two years.

Unlike most movies, De Palma's SCARFACE begs to be seen on the small screen.

Sign at a Prop 8 protest in NYC:

"I can has equal rights?"

The best animated film I've seen this year was probably the short preceding WALL-E in theaters, a five-minute gem called "Presto" that managed to combine no-holds-barred slapstick with a startling undercurrent of tenderness. It's a deeply humane film, also very funny -- and I can't quite explain how the folks at Pixar combined the two so deftly.

That said, the best feature-length animated film I've seen this year -- and I don't think there will be anything to rival it in the next month and a half -- is WALTZ WITH BASHIR, a semi-documentary account of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, told from the perspective of a former soldier trying to recover his lost memories of the conflict. I don't agree with the film's ideological perspective or its political stance toward the conflict, of course, but that's of little import. My only real complaint against it, is that the static conventions of documentary filmmaking tend to work against the animated format. But from time to time, WALTZ offers a fascinating glimpse into the kinds of stories that animation appears uniquely suited to tell.

Republicans are betting that the electorate will re-embrace their brand of conservatism, warts and all, after two years of near-total Democratic control. And if the first half of Obama's term is as disastrous as it appears it will be, they may be correct.

hell, a sci-fi cartoon, when's the last time anyone pulled that off well?

Linklater's A SCANNER DARKLY is the most recent one I can think of. It's not great, but it's good enough, and the last ten minutes pack quite a wallop.

You might like Aristomenis Tsirbas's upcoming CGI cartoon TERRA -- it's an alien-invasion movie, sort of like WAR OF THE WORLDS but with the roles reversed. If anything, it's even more aggressively dystopian than WALL-E. I loathed it, for reasons too numerous to list here, but I have to admit the production design is great.