Russ McBee

"Cabin Fever", this week's episode of "Lost," brought us a little closer to the rescue of the Oceanic Six, reinforced the suggestion that Claire is dead, painted a picture of John Locke as some sort of Dalai Lama over the island, and revealed that the island is capable of being moved from one location to another.

"Lost" is the only TV show I've ever seen that required me to take notes in order to keep up.

Claire Littleton stars in "The Sixth Sense"

I'm beginning to think Claire might actually be dead.

When Locke entered Jacob's cabin, we saw Claire and Christian Shepard inside, sitting there in the dark, smiling at each other. Neither of them seemed the slightest bit concerned over Aaron (whom we last saw being protected by Sawyer). As protective as Claire has always been around her baby, I can't imagine that she would ever be so blithely unconcerned for his welfare. When Locke entered the cabin, it was pitch dark inside, illuminated only by the oil lamp he carried with him. Claire and Christian were slumped casually in chairs on opposite ends of the room, facing each other; their pose was as if Locke had interrupted a comfortable, casual, and perfectly ordinary conversation between a father and his daughter, but the darkness and Claire's lack of concern for Aaron carried a vibe that suggested Claire isn't entirely connected to this world any more.

Of course, if Claire is dead, then Christian probably is, too. And if they're both dead, then we've been hoodwinked by nothing more than a cheesy reference to "The Sixth Sense" all this time. That would be an exceedingly lame turn of events.

The one question that matters

Inside the cabin, Christian said to Locke, "Why don't you ask the one question that matters?" Locke thought for a moment and said, "How do we save the island?" (If I had been asking the question, it would have been more along the lines of "How do we get off this island?", but that's just me.) After leaving the cabin, Locke said to Hurley and Ben, "He wants us to move the island." Is that portability the reason Ben told Widmore in "The Shape Of Things To Come" that Widmore would never be able to find the island again?

Benjamin Linus stars in "The Tempest"

This episode was largely about Locke, but we also saw something important happen regarding Ben and his relationship with the Losties: he acknowledged that he was no longer in charge of the island (if he ever really was). As Hurley, Locke, and Ben were approaching the cabin, Ben admitted that he had been following Hurley the whole time. By surrendering his path to Hurley, Ben was admitting to them that he was no longer in any kind of leadership role.

As another acknowledgment of his loss of power, Ben said to Locke, "Destiny, John, is a fickle bitch." When they reached the cabin, Ben followed this observation by finally handing the baton to Locke; he said, "The island wanted me to get sick, and it wanted you to get well. My time is over, John. It's yours now." I don't think Ben really believed that, since he later becomes the leader of a future war against Charles Widmore; instead, I think Ben was really just handing things over to John as a caretaker until Ben can engineer a way to regain his position of authority.

Just like Prospero in Shakespeare's "The Tempest," Ben has lost his power; like Prospero, his authority over the island seems to have evaporated. However, as we approach the final two seasons of the show, just keep the ending of "The Tempest" in mind: Prospero eventually got his power back, and he regained dominion over his island.

John Locke as Dalai Lama?

All of this is secondary to the episode's main focus on John Locke.

The mysterious, never-aging Richard Alpert showed up at least three times in Locke's childhood. He was there after John's premature birth, as the baby was removed from his incubator. He appeared again in Locke's childhood, performing a test of some kind on Locke's ability to recognize certain items as belonging to him. He was mentioned a third time during Locke's teenage years.

Alpert's second appearance to John happened when John looked to be about six years old. Alpert presented Locke with several items and asked him which of those items already belonged to him. Of the baseball glove, the Book of Laws (which looked distinctly like a leather-bound Bible), the vial of sand (or perhaps it was ash from the circle around Jacob's cabin), the old compass, the comic book (with the caption about the "Hidden Land"), and the old knife, Locke picked the sand, the compass, and the knife. Alpert asked him if he was sure of the knife, and John said yes. Alpert looked disappointed at that, gathered the items up, and told Locke's mother that John "isn't quite ready" for the "school" Alpert claimed he was considering for Locke.

That scene evoked the methodology used to identify the next Dalai Lama after the death of his predecessor. When a child is identified as a candidate, he is presented with several items and is asked to identify those which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. His correct identification of those items is taken as strong evidence that he is the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama.

Did Alpert think John Locke was the reincarnation of someone specific? Did he recruit Benjamin Linus the same way?

Telling Locke what he can't do

Alpert's third intervention in Locke's life happened a few years later, when Locke was a teenager. A teacher or guidance counselor suggested that Locke attend a summer camp devoted to chemistry and other new technologies; the teacher said that Locke was specifically requested by a certain Dr. Alpert from Mittelos Labs (the same company Alpert represented when he recruited Juliet to the island). Locke rejected the idea of attending summer science camp, based primarily on its sheer geekiness. He said he was interested in sports, camping, and hiking.

The teacher told Locke that he wasn't really that kind of person, and in response, Locke said, "Don't tell me what I can't do." The adult, paralyzed Locke said exactly the same words to the travel agent in Australia who told him a wheelchair-bound person couldn't go on the walkabout Locke had traveled to Australia to attend.

Speaking of the walkabout, we also learned that Matthew Abaddon himself planted the suggestion with Locke. Posing as an orderly during Locke's rehab after his fall, Abaddon said to Locke, "Do you believe in miracles?" Locke replied in the negative. Abaddon said, "You should. I had one happen to me." After suggesting John go on the walkabout, he said, "I'm a lot more than just an orderly, John."

We already knew that much.

Meanwhile, on the freighter

A couple of interesting developments happened on the freighter.

The doctor, whose dead body washed up on shore a day before this episode, was shown alive and well on the freighter. One of Keamy's men told the doctor about the Morse code message from the island that had reported his body washing up on shore; right after this, Keamy cut the doctor's throat and pushed him overboard.

This means the doctor was in two places at once: alive on the freighter and dead on the beach. Like the two rabbits in the Orchid video, he could have been subjected to the island's teleportation/time travel behavior; as his body floated away from the freighter, it could have been transported back in time a few days, so that it washed up on shore on an earlier date, while he was still alive on the freighter.

I don't know if this means anything, or if it's a continuity error, but the body that washed up on shore had stitches on the left cheek. Back on the freighter, when Keamy killed the doctor, there were no stitches on that gash.

Right before he was murdered by Keamy, Captain Gault readied a Zodiac inflatable boat so that Desmond and Sayid could escape the freighter. Desmond refused to return to the island, so Sayid took off on his own.

That boat looked just big enough to hold about six people.

In August 2002, John Yoo wrote an infamous memo on behalf of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel which attempted to justify the use of torture by the CIA. The memo has since been released (PDF here), widely circulated, and then disavowed by the Bush White House.

Another memo accompanied that one which remains secret to this day; this second memo detailed specific torture techniques, including waterboarding, that Yoo said were justified according to the legal reasoning set forth in the first memo. Until now, that second memo has remained secret under a White House assertion of attorney/client privilege.

However, since the Bush administration seems to have relied upon that secret memo to formulate official policy, a federal judge has decided to review the memo and determine if its continued classification is justifiable.

If the second memo is indeed released, I'm under no illusion that it will result in any measure of accountability for the criminal gang currently running the executive branch of the US government, but its disclosure will at least help flesh out the historical record for future generations. We've slid too far down the rabbit hole for anyone to expect real legal consequences for that horrid band of thugs; documentation of the decay of the presidency is about the best we can hope for.

The pending House appropriations bill that would provide "emergency" funding for the continued occupation of Iraq is certain to draw a veto from the White House (and how much longer is this five-year-old occupation going to be falsely labeled an "emergency" so it can be funded off the books, outside the normal accounting of the Pentagon?).

The veto bait consists of the following amendments, all of which are desperately needed:

o Out in 18 months: Requires that troops begin redeployment from Iraq within 30 days with a goal of completing withdrawal of combat troops by December of 2009.

o Treaties with Iraq: Requires that any agreement between the United States and the Government of Iraq committing U.S. forces be specifically authorized by Congress.

o Iraqis Pay for Iraq Reconstruction: Requires that U.S. reconstruction aid for Iraq be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Iraqi Government.

o Fair Fuel Costs: Requires the President to reach an agreement with Iraq to subsidize fuel costs for U.S. Armed Forces operating in Iraq so that our military pays what Iraqis pay.

o Meeting Pentagon Guidelines: Requires that troops meet the Pentagon’s definition of “combat ready” before they can be deployed to Iraq; Prohibits troops from being deployed in Iraq longer than recommended under Pentagon guidelines; and Requires that troops follow military guidelines for time spent at home between deployments.

o Clean Up Contracting in Iraq: Expands current law to make all contractors working in war zones subject to prosecution for offenses that would otherwise be in violation of U.S. law; extends the statute of limitations for fraud cases during wartime; and amends the federal criminal code to prohibit profiteering and fraud involving contractors overseas.

o No Permanent Bases in Iraq: Prohibits the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq.

o Prohibits Torture: Prohibits interrogation techniques not authorized in the Army Field Manual.

These eight provisions should be obvious and automatic components of any sane US foreign policy; unfortunately, sanity has been missing from the White House for over 7 years now. If this bill reaches the President's desk in its current form, the obvious veto would be anti-climactic. However, John McCain's inevitable umbrage at the common sense provisions in this bill will be fun to watch; it'll be even more fun to watch the veins pop out in his neck while he strains to maintain his pose as Cheerleader #1 for the policy failures embodied by the continued occupation of Iraq.

Lawrence F. Kaplan, one of the premier neocon cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, has had a change of heart. He no longer considers himself a neocon, and he has had some very unflattering things to say about the Iraq invasion (which he and William Kristol pimped in a 2003 book), the handling of its aftermath, and the general bankruptcy of the neocon worldview.

This isn't the first time Kaplan has recanted his previous views, as this quote from 2006 shows:

Would more U.S. troops alter Iraq's homicidal dynamic? Not really, given that, on the question of sectarian rage, America is now largely beside the point. True, U.S. troops can be--and have been--a vital buffer between Iraq's warring sects. But they cannot reprogram their coarsened and brittle cultures. Even if America had arrived in Iraq with a detailed post-war plan, twice the number of troops, and all the counterinsurgency expertise in the world, my guess is that we would have found ourselves in exactly the same spot. The Iraqis, after all, still would have had the final say.

Some choice quotes from a current interview with Spiegel:

My sense is that the influx of 30,000 new American forces holds the least explanatory power [for the decrease in violence since the surge began]. Most important were the tribes. And their switching sides predates the surge.

After the invasion, Kaplan spent two years in Iraq trying to understand the country whose invasion he'd advocated so stridently. Safely ensconced in his ivory tower here, Iraq was nothing more than an abstraction to him in 2003. Once he traveled there and realized that the situation was infinitely more complex than he and his co-conspirators had realized, it finally dawned on him that American exceptionalism might just have some limits:

So I decided to [go to Iraq and] cover the war and had some very vivid experiences in the process that really altered my thinking. Before the war Iraq was an abstraction, an idea. Once you have seen the place you can't help but be much more cautious with the ideas that you put on the table.

It's too bad he and the other neocon criminals didn't have the common sense to realize that six years ago.

He's also finally come around to adopt one of the dominant anti-war arguments which has held since the beginning, and which becomes more starkly outlined with every passing day:

I also think that the Iraq experience has set back the cause of idealism in American foreign policy and the willingness of Western countries to intervene for humanitarian reasons. Take Darfur: I think it's because of Iraq that nobody wants to intervene there. So on the whole the effects have been huge and overwhelmingly negative. I don't see anything good that's come from this war, I'm afraid.

At least he finally accepts what those treasonous liberals have been saying since 2002.

Kaplan was asked this question: "So for the record: Was the Iraq war a mistake?" His response: "Yes. Knowing what we know today, definitely. I know this is political poison in some quarters, but respect to reality demands this answer." Wow. Now he's even reality-based!

This being 2008 and all, here's the money quote:

The near term argument here is that if John McCain wins the presidential election, neoconservatism will have been vindicated. Because by voting him into office, people will have tacitly given their endorsement to that sort of foreign policy. His advisers are the very people we are arguing about.

Consider that statement very carefully before voting this fall.

From a new memoir by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former commander of US forces in Iraq:

Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.

Sanchez was scapegoated and denied a promotion by Donald Rumsfeld, once it became clear the occupation of Iraq was turning into a disaster. As they say, go read the whole thing.

Because of the resurgence of nuclear power, uranium mining claims in the western US have skyrocketed from 2,000 in 2001 to over 43,000 last year.

Those claims are now encroaching on the Grand Canyon and other western monuments:

On public lands within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park, there are now more than 1,100 uranium claims, compared with just 10 in January 2003, according to data from the Department of the Interior.

[...]

Uranium claims are also encroaching on stretches of Western parkland such as Arches National Park, Capitol Reef National Park and Canyonlands National Park, all in Utah, as well as a proposed wilderness area in Colorado called the Dolores River Canyon.

The central question is this:

"If you can't stop mining at the Grand Canyon, where can you stop it?" asked Richard Wiles, executive director of the Environmental Working Group.

So far, we haven't been able to stop mountaintop removal in Tennessee, and we've barely been able to stave off unnecessary oil drilling in ANWR. The question posed by Mr. Wiles is not just rhetorical, as history has proven.

Following a speech in Missouri yesterday, President Bush engaged in an exceedingly rare question-and-answer session with employees of the company where he was speaking. Among other topics, he repeated his threadbare spin of ethanol as a viable fuel source:

"As you know, I'm a ethanol person," he said, explaining his belief that it can help reduce U.S. dependence on oil. "It makes sense for America to be growing energy."

Actually, it doesn't make any sense at all. Regardless of whether corn-based ethanol is more or less efficient than petroleum, the bare fact is we're burning food for fuel, and there is only so much arable land available; obviously then, the already acute food pressures on the world economy can only become more pronounced with the subtraction of a major food source from the supply chain. Every ton of burned food is a ton that didn't fill starving bellies. The current crisis in escalating food prices around the world is exacerbated by the fact that we're burning food; in the same Q&A session linked above, even Bush himself admitted that this is the case:

Bush acknowledged that ethanol has contributed to higher food prices, but said it was not the main reason. He also listed increased energy costs, which affect transportation and fertilizer prices; drought and other weather-related problems; and increased demand stemming from greater prosperity in once-poor nations. He noted that the middle class in India has grown to 350 million -- more than the population of the United States.

All of those factors he mentioned are certainly contributing to the problem, but burning corn is definitely a factor. Corn-based ethanol is simply a stupid idea.

In the same session, Bush also repeated an oft-told lie about domestic oil production and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

The president, who appeared to be surprised two months ago when told gasoline appeared headed for $4 a gallon, said, "I know you're having to pay more at the fuel pump than you want."

Blaming Congress for blocking efforts to allow Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling, for example, he said the nation needed to move away from "an energy policy that basically prohibits America from finding oil in our own land."

"If Congress is truly interested in helping relieve the price of gasoline," it would recognize that the country needed to drill for oil and gas in areas that have been off-limits largely for environmental reasons, and would encourage the construction of oil refineries.

This is sheer nonsense.

The United States consumes approximately 20 million barrels of petroleum per day. The most wildly optimistic estimate of the technically recoverable reserves in ANWR might amount to 16 billion barrels (technically recoverable reserves are those that are theoretically recoverable without any consideration of economic viability), but more realistic estimates put the number somewhere around 7 billion.

That represents a supply of somewhere between 350 and 800 days.

Of course, if the oil fields in ANWR were actually developed, it's physically impossible to expect those fields to produce more than a few hundred thousand barrels per day, at most. Production from ANWR would be a (pardon the pun) drop in the bucket compared to our daily consumption.

Furthermore, the oil produced from those fields would be sold on the open market, along with all the other oil in the world. If ANWR could even produce 1 million barrels per day (which seems highly unlikely), it would represent only 1.2 percent of the current global consumption rate of 85 million barrels per day. If it's sold on the open market, most of that oil would go to countries other than the United States. The price of oil would not be affected to any significant degree.

Meanwhile, the environment within ANWR would be permanently destroyed.

Bush and his supporters are willing to inflict permanent damage on the environment in exchange for short term economic gain for their buddies in the petroleum industry, while providing absolutely no benefit to our real national energy needs. They're more than happy to sell oil to China (which is where a lot of that ANWR oil would go) while claiming to the public that they're doing something about our nation's energy security.

The failure lies not with Congress being unwilling to destroy ANWR for Exxon's benefit. The failure lies squarely in the White House's refusal to invest in non-petroleum energy sources that don't involve the burning of food.

As I do every week, I watch "Lost" online a day or two after it airs on TV. In the meantime, I deliberately avoid reading any reviews or commentary online about that episode. Before writing this post, I've maintained that practice, so I still haven't seen what anyone else has to say about this week's episode, "Something Nice Back Home."

This episode wasn't a barn-burner like last week's cascade of revelations; instead, the story advanced in a more "Lost"-like slow trickle of suggestions and innuendo, with a few shockers thrown in.

Betrayal or redemption?

First, in a flash-forward, we discover that Jack and Kate move in together, sometime after Kate's trial has concluded. Jack has apparently changed his mind about being with her and raising Aaron with her -- in fact, Kate says to Jack at one point, "I'm glad you changed your mind." Jack says to Hurley in the mental hospital, "I changed my mind after the trial." Throughout the first four seasons of the show, Jack has seldom changed his mind about much of anything, so I think it's significant that this particular phrase is used twice in the episode to describe his feelings for Kate. Does the fact that he changed his mind indicate that Jack really has become a different person after being rescued, and that he's now willing to learn from his mistakes, or does the fact that he changed his mind about Kate represent some kind of momentary weakness on his part?

In the flash-forward in last season's finale, drug-addicted Jack said to Kate, "We have to go back." That exchange seems to have taken place after Jack and Kate's budding home life (as shown in this week's episode) collapsed, since Jack was shown in that episode living apart from Kate, in a shabby, unkempt apartment. Does the line "I changed my mind" then represent a momentary lapse of Jack's concern about those left behind on the island (made even more intense by Jack's proposal of marriage and Kate's acceptance), and does his statement to Kate about "going back" to the island represent some kind of redemption of that lapse?

We're starting to see how the Oceanic Six carry significant psychological baggage back to civilization with them; I'm beginning to think that, after their rescue, the six of them are wracked with guilt over betraying the survivors of Flight 815 they left behind. Perhaps Jack changing his mind about Kate is merely an internal struggle to try and forget about the other Losties he and the other five may well have betrayed.

About Jack's appendectomy

My appendix ruptured when I was two years and nine months old, and I remember it like it happened yesterday. The whole experience (and especially the sickness and pain) are blazoned so strongly in my memory, that to this day, I get phantom pains in my lower right side (and sometimes strong nausea) whenever someone even mentions the word "appendicitis." It makes me a bit woozy and sick-feeling to even type the word.

Folks, please do me a favor: if "Lost" ever again features anything related to the human appendix, please warn me ahead of time.

Jack had appendicitis in this week's episode, and Juliet performed the (rudimentary) surgery on the beach, with scavenged medical equipment. I knew what was coming up (since she'd already diagnosed the condition), so I just turned down the volume, minimized the window, and played a game of Solitaire until the scene was over. I could not have watched the appendectomy scene without throwing up, so if there were any startling revelations in that scene, I will always remain ignorant of them. I know Kate and Bernard were somehow involved in that scene, but I really don't think I want to know any more than that. Let's just not talk about it.

Even listening to that scene played at low volume with the window minimized, I started to feel a little nauseous and dizzy. Yes, I'm a wuss. I can't help it.

And I could have lived my entire life without accidentally seeing even one second of the scene where Juliet was stitching up Jack's side. I feel a bit dizzy. I'm going to go lie down for a minute.

Christian Shepard -- alive or not?

Jack's allegedly dead father was referenced in three different contexts in this episode. Near the beginning, after the scene of Jack reading to Aaron in the flash-forward, Jack makes a statement to Kate about his father: "Well, he was a good storyteller; I'll give him that." The use of the past tense was curious, since Christian Shepard shows up seemingly in the flesh later in the episode (three times -- twice to Jack and once to Claire). I think Jack may have simply been saying "He told good stories when I was a kid," rather than "He was a good storyteller, but he's dead now." I don't think Jack's use of the past tense was meant to imply that future Jack knows for certain his father is dead.

Later in the episode, and still in the flash-forward, Jack sees his father in the lobby of the hospital. Although we only see Christian from behind, it is most definitely him. Jack looks shocked. In a later scene, he and Jack make eye contact, and Christian even calls out Jack's name. Jack is then interrupted by another doctor, and when he turns back to where his father was, Christian is gone. The scene would work with Christian either being an apparition or a real, corporeal, living person. It was deliberately ambiguous.

Christian's third appearance was back on the island. Sawyer, Miles, Claire, and Aaron are making their way back to the beach to rejoin the other Losties. During the middle of the night, while they're camping on the way back, Claire awakes to find Aaron missing from her side. She looks up, and on the other side of the campfire, sees Christian Shepard holding Aaron. This, of course, would be the first time Christian had ever seen his grandson. Claire looks at him with a puzzled expression and says, "Dad?"

The next morning, Miles admits to Sawyer that Claire got up in the middle of the night and wandered off, following someone she referred to as her father. Sawyer then finds Aaron placed carefully at the base of a tree. (As an aside, this could be how Aaron manages to get off the island without his mother, although I'd hate to see Claire's separation from Aaron handled in such a squishy, ambiguous way. Are we really going to be told that Claire gives up her son so she can go off into the jungle chasing a ghost? That rings false and contrived to me.)

Since Miles is a ghost hunter, he could have simply keyed in on Christian's presence as a ghost. On the other hand, he could have actually seen Christian as a living person. So, there's another ambiguity about whether Christian is alive or not; however, Miles is fully capable of distinguishing the dead from the living, so it strikes me as unlikely that he would have mistaken the ghost of Christian for a living person.

However, Hurley said something to Jack in the mental hospital (in the flash-forward) that seems to suggest Christian really is dead. Jack and Hurley discussed the fact that (dead) Charlie had visited Hurley and spoken to him. Hurley even said that Charlie wanted Hurley to deliver a message to Jack ("You're not supposed to raise him."). After Charlie's warning about Aaron, Hurley said that Charlie had another message for Jack: "He says someone's going to be visiting you, too. Soon."

Is that a reference to Jack's father, whom Jack sees right after that scene? If (dead) Charlie is visiting Hurley, and (dead) Charlie relays a message to Jack that he's also going to get a visit from beyond the grave, the juxtaposition of Jack's seeing Christian right after that would strongly imply that Christian Shepard is in fact dead.

I still think he's alive, though.

Some surprises

A few plot developments in this episode surprised me.

I totally missed any hint or clue that Charlotte spoke Korean. That slipped right past me.

Keamy and at least three of his men survived the encounter with the smoke monster. To date, isn't Locke the only other person we've seen survive an attack from Smokey?

In the mental hospital, this exchange happens:

Jack: "Why aren't you taking your meds?"
Hurley: "Because we're dead. All of us. All of the Oceanic Six. We're all dead. We never got off that island."

I think that exchange is a red herring, and I think it's merely a reference by the writers to the Purgatory theory so prevalent among fans during the first two seasons of the show.

Jack said to Kate (of Sawyer): "He made his choice. He chose to stay. I'm the one who came back." and "I'm the one who saved you." I don't think this means the Oceanic Six are the only ones who chose to leave the island; I think this dialog is in reference to something else we haven't seen yet. "Chose to stay"? "Came back" from where? And what did Jack save Kate from? We haven't seen any of those things yet.

The 1958 Frank Capra educational film The Unchained Goddess contains a specific and prophetic warning about excess carbon dioxide emissions from industry and transportation, and their potential to trigger catastrophic global warming:

Even now, Man may be unwittingly changing the world's climate through the waste products of his civilization.

That was fifty years ago.

Here's a short clip:

(Via the Center For Investigative Reporting)

As I mentioned recently, the Northshore Brasserie is one of two authentic French restaurants in Knoxville. Tonight, I joined four friends for another evening of exquisitely prepared classic French dishes. Just like the last time the five of us dined there together, the food, the wine, the atmosphere, the service, and the presentation were all flawless.

We started off with two appetizers; first, we had fried Camembert wedges with watercress and a strawberry vinaigrette. Yes, it's fried cheese, but it's fried cheese like you've never had it before. Rich and nutty, the Camembert was perfectly offset by the crisp breading surrounding it. The sections of cheese were thick enough that the centers were still creamy and smooth, yet the outer portions flowed perfectly into that sturdy golden crust surrounding them.

The Camembert dish was excellent and could certainly stand on its own, but we accidentally upstaged the cheese with some of the best oysters I've ever eaten. Our second appetizer was a dozen Chef's Creek oysters on the half shell; the flavor was creamy, yet exhibited hints of melon, and perhaps even citrus on the finish. These ever-so-slightly sweet oysters paired beautifully (as did the second dozen we ordered) with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne.

Did I mention the Brasserie offers half-price bottles of wine on Tuesdays? That made the Veuve Clicquot pretty compelling. It's an exquisite, heavenly wine, and at 50 percent off, it's too tempting to resist.

For the main course, the five of us chose one of two dishes: three of us chose gnocchi with clams and scallops, and two of us chose steamed mussels. The gnocchi (those classic Italian potato dumplings) were tender, soft, and very hearty. Gnocchi is a difficult dish to get just right; it's very easy to overcook them to toughness, or under-cook them so that they're still doughy and spongy. The gnocchi at the Brasserie hit the perfect medium, cooked to exactly the right consistency. They were solid but not chewy, done just to the point that the potato dough was cooked throughout to the point of perfect equilibrium. The shellfish in the dish were likewise prepared exactly to that elusive point where they are cooked throughout, yet still tender and rich.

One of us chose the mussels Brittany, and I chose the mussels Mariniere. The Brittany mussels were steamed in some kind of white Belgian beer (perhaps a Chimay, or maybe something like a Hoegaarden) with shallots, and the Mariniere were steamed in white wine (I suspect it was a Riesling, but that's just a guess) with shallots and parsley. Both were paragons of the familiar, delicious moules of the Low Countries. As is traditional with that dish, the mussels were served at the table in their cooking pots, with that deep, rich liquid waiting below the shellfish at the bottom of the pot. All five of us ended the main course by sopping up that liquid heaven with morsels of French bread. If we could have up-ended the pot and drunk from it without causing a scene, we might well have done so; it was just that good.

In addition to the Veuve Clicquot, we had a bottle of 2005 Robertson shiraz (one of my favorite South African wines), as well as a great bottle of Bourgogne. Unfortunately, I forgot to note the vineyard of that wonderful Burgundy, but I can state that it was warm, light, and bore a subtle hint of jasmine in the bouquet. I just wish I'd written down the name. Like the Robertson, it married perfectly with the shellfish; although some might consider it a faux pas to drink red wine with shellfish, I personally think that softer reds go very well with aromatic shellfish, steamed in herbs, butter, and garlic. To me, that's a perfect match.

To finish off that landmark meal, our desserts consisted of a gorgeous puff pastry with chocolate fudge sauce, a sorbet (which I didn't sample), and a delicate, fluffy espresso chocolate cake (which I nearly inhaled). The espresso cake merged perfectly with Irish coffee, prepared (as the server suggested) with "all the frou-frou."

If I'm having Irish coffee, by dang, I want the frou-frou.

As I mentioned in my earlier review, this establishment is an authentic French brasserie. By "authentic," I do not mean that it's merely an accurate imitation of the real thing. The Northshore Brasserie is no mere simulacrum; it is genuine and real, with food, service, and atmosphere crafted with love, depth, and understanding.

Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss." If I followed my bliss, it would probably lead directly to 9430 Northshore Drive.

Here's my first poll:

I'm not one to automatically trust the word of any OPEC minister, but this quote from Chakib Khelil, Algeria's energy minister, bears some consideration:

Opec's president on Monday warned oil prices could hit $200 a barrel and there would be little the cartel could do to help.

[...]

Mr Khelil blamed record oil prices on the weak dollar and global political insecurity.

He told El Moudjahid, Algeria's government newspaper: "I don't think that an increase in production would help lower prices, because there is a balance between supply and demand and the stocks of gasoline in the United States have recorded a surplus and are at their highest level for five years."

First of all, it should be obvious that the weak dollar has contributed at least somewhat to the escalating price of oil, since the international oil trade is conducted almost exclusively in dollars. As the dollar weakens (due to mismanagement by the Bush administration), the price of commodities traded in that currency naturally rise. I don't think that's a controversial statement.

Also, it seems just as obvious to me that "global political insecurity" contributes to the rising price of oil, as it always has in the past. The Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-1980 caused oil prices to skyrocket. In today's market, the mercenary US occupation of Iraq continues to destabilize most of the Middle East. Coupled with persistent sabotage along Nigeria's oil pipelines and declining production outside OPEC, the near-term prospect of $200 per barrel or more seems all the more realistic.

Mr. Khelil, quoted above, blames factors external to OPEC for the rising cost of oil and offers the excuse that an increase in production from OPEC countries wouldn't make much difference. The OPEC nations collectively produce 40 percent of the world's oil supply, so it would seem an increase in OPEC output would indeed have at least some effect on global prices. However, he may be correct in the sense that the current price of oil is not just reflective of overly simplistic supply/demand curves; the current price also reflects significant market jitters regarding future supply and the stability of the US dollar.

Or maybe he's telling us something else. Maybe he's telling us that the OPEC countries are approaching the peak of their production, and they couldn't raise current production if they wanted to.

Only eight years ago, OPEC leaders were looking hungrily at $25 per barrel as the "correct level" for the price of oil, and they were considering a production increase in order to prevent the price from exceeding $30. Now that oil costs almost five times as much as it did only a few short years ago, it seems incongruous for those same oil ministers to claim that an increase in production at $120+ per barrel wouldn't make any difference on the global market.

If you were an oil minister for an OPEC country, wouldn't the prospect of increasing your government's revenue make you want to scramble to produce as much oil at current prices as possible? If OPEC really did have any spare production capacity at all, don't you think they'd be chomping at the bit to pump as much of it as they could?

(And before anyone suggests this ridiculous idea, no conceivable increase in US domestic production could possibly begin to make up the shortfall; we cannot drill our way out of this problem.)

At over $120 per barrel, any oil-producing nation with spare capacity would find itself in high cotton by increasing production only a tiny amount. The fact that no major oil-producing country is taking advantage of that potential may be a warning sign; maybe no one's increasing production simply because they can't.

If that's the case, we'll look back on $120 per barrel with nostalgic longing in a very short time.

R. Neal has this week's edition of the quasi-weekly TennViews blog roundup.

See what Tennessee progressives have been posting about here.

If the title of this week's "Lost" episode ("The Shape Of Things To Come") is to be taken literally, we're in for a mighty exciting ride in future episodes. This episode was tight, the narrative was fast-paced and controlled, and the story jumped forward in several different respects.

The episode blew several of my pet theories right out of the water and gave rise to a host of new questions.

We've known for a while now that Sayid is one of the Oceanic Six; when that fact was revealed in "The Economist," we also saw him working as Ben's hit man. The juxtaposition of those facts in that one episode led me to believe that Ben left the island at the same time as the Oceanic Six (although he clearly wasn't one of the official Six), and it also led me to believe that Sayid's departure from the island was somehow directly connected to his decision to work for Ben. This week's episode negates both of those ideas.

It's now obvious that Ben left the island after the Oceanic Six. We see Ben lying on the ground in the Sahara Desert in Tunisia (presumably having arrived via teleportation), wearing a parka, of all things. He then makes his way to a hotel, where we learn that the date is October 24, 2005. The Oceanic Six have been off the island for some considerable time by that date, since enough time has elapsed for Sayid to track down his long-lost love Nadia, then marry her, then see her die in Los Angeles.

Ben tracks down Sayid in Tikrit, Iraq, on the day of Nadia's funeral, where he implies to Sayid that the bald guy Ben just saw in the funeral procession was the man responsible for killing Nadia. Ben also tells Sayid the bald guy works for Charles Widmore. Sayid, of course, kills the bald guy in anger. He then agrees to join Ben's "war" against Widmore, asking him, "Who's next?"

When Ben turns away from Sayid after replying "I'll be in touch," Ben's wearing a very self-satisfied grin which strongly implied to me that he had just manipulated Sayid into doing what Ben wanted. That smile made me wonder if the bald guy really did kill Nadia, or if Ben just used that as a means of tricking Sayid into working for him.

When Keamy (of the Freighter People) executed Ben's daughter Alex, Ben said of Charles Widmore, "He changed the rules." That prompted him to summon the smoke monster to kill Keamy and the other commandos. What "rules" would have prevented Ben from summoning Smokey the day the Freighter People landed and having it kill them from the outset? Ben has always stated that the Freighties intended to kill everyone on the island, and that presumably includes his compatriot Others, in addition to the survivors of Flight 815. If Ben was so certain his fellow Others were in danger, why not just summon Smokey to protect them all at the first sign of danger? Those are some very strange "rules" he's operating under.

Speaking of Smokey, Ben entered the closet in his hidden room and revealed an ancient-looking stone door leading into a stone tunnel; this is presumably the place from which he summoned the smoke monster. The appearance of the door and the hieroglyphs on its face seem to imply that the smoke monster is very ancient. This shoots down my theory that the smoke monster was originally a part of the DHARMA Initiative.

Earlier in the episode, Hurley, Sawyer, and Locke are seen playing Risk. Anyone who's ever played the game will recognize the truth of Hurley's statement that "Australia's the key to the whole game." That's certainly true of Risk, and I believe it may also prove true of many of the mysteries of "Lost."

For example, Jack's father, Christian Shepard, had made numerous trips to Australia over the years, where he carried on a long-term affair with a woman by whom he fathered Claire Littleton. I've always believed that Christian Shepard is still alive, and that the apparitions of him are not actually a ghost. I've believed for quite a while that Christian is somehow involved with the Others, the DHARMA people, or maybe both, and that he was instrumental in engineering the facts to make sure Jack was on board Flight 815. It may have been during one or more of those trips to Australia that Christian first became involved with the island; this would make Australia "the key" to that part of the story, and perhaps a lot more of it as well.

At the end of the current episode, Ben makes his way to Charles Widmore's swank London penthouse. Ben awakens Widmore, and Widmore says, "Have you come here to kill me, Benjamin?" Ben's odd reply: "We both know I can't do that."

Why can't Ben kill Charles Widmore?

Another odd exchange between them happened when Widmore said "That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again." That seems to imply some kind of symbiotic relationship between the Others and Widmore, with Ben somehow acting as a usurper.

Ben's reply was just as strange: "But you'll never find it." Widmore's freighter certainly found it, and Widmore had obviously found the island in the past, so why couldn't he find it again? Can the island teleport itself and somehow remain hidden from outside view? Frankly, I think that would be too strange, even for the writers of "Lost."

John McCain's "Pander To Anyone I Can Think Of" tour has made a particularly shameless stop in New Orleans. In the still-devastated Lower Ninth Ward, the poorest and most heavily damaged area of the city, McCain had the gall to say this:

"Never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way it's been handled," McCain said in remarks addressed to the people of New Orleans and Louisiana. "History will judge this president," he said in answer to a question about President Bush's legacy. "But it will never, ever again happen."

These words came from the same man whose Senate votes contributed to the "terrible and disgraceful" handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and validated the disastrous non-response from the Bush White House:

Democrats criticized McCain's visit to New Orleans, noting that he'd voted against a spending bill in 2006 that would have provided $28 billion in hurricane relief, and legislation that would have extended unemployment and Medicaid benefits to hurricane victims for several months. The Arizona senator also opposed a commission to study the federal government's response.

"Touring the 9th Ward with reporters can't hide the fact that John McCain voted against billions of dollars in Katrina recovery efforts, emergency healthcare for survivors, unemployment assistance for displaced workers, and even the creation of a commission to find out what went wrong," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said in a statement. "People in the Gulf Coast can hardly afford four more years of the failed Bush-McCain agenda."

McCain/Bush: a distinction without a difference.

By a lopsided vote of 349-62, the House of Representatives voted today to impose a moratorium on seven regulations promulgated by the Bush White House which would have eliminated $13 billion in Medicaid funding for health care for the poor. Every House Democrat and two-thirds of House Republicans voted to stop the enactment of the regulations, which would have simply palmed off that $13 billion onto already cash-strapped states.

The outcome of Bush's latest slam against the poor would have been all too predictable:

"Some of these regulations already have become effective and current state estimates of the impact could be as high as four times the administration's $13 billion estimate," National Governors Association chairman Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., and other governors wrote lawmakers this month. Timely action to impose the one-year moratorium was "critical to avert significant disruptions in coverage for vulnerable populations," they wrote.

All 50 governors oppose the new rules.

The last paragraph of the article notes that 48 million people received Medicaid assistance in 2007. When added to the 47 million people in this country with no health insurance at all, that's 95 million Americans who either have no health insurance or must rely on federal anti-poverty assistance for health care.

That means 31 percent of the US population lives without standard health insurance. Until we adopt a single-payer system, this country will continue its decline toward Third World status.

In a comment here, the inimitable Betty Bean said:

Is it too late to draft Gore?

My sentiments exactly.

The rapidly shriveling newspaper industry has seen many papers adopt a smaller size to save costs. One Maryville paper has decided to spin the decay of their business model a bit more creatively:

Instead of shrinking staff, the Maryville Daily Times is shrinking the physical size of the newspaper, scaling it down from 24 inches to 22 inches wide.

[...]

The publisher hopes to save about 20 percent on paper costs with the change, and says the smaller size is better for the environment as well.

If shaving two inches off the width of the paper is that good for the environment, think of the benefits we'd see if they reduced it down to zero.

Here it is, the birthday present I really, really want (even though my birthday is nearly five months away):

When we first saw the [Nikon] D3 before it was officially launched I'll admit there were some raised eyebrows, and the first question was 'is this a replacement for the D2Hs, the D2X, both or neither?'. The truth of course is that it's not that simple, and Nikon's long-awaited first foray into the world of the full frame sensor is essentially in a class of its own.

[...] 

For a sports camera it's also a surprisingly good studio and landscape camera, and if there's a better DSLR out there for photojournalists and red carpet paps we've yet to meet it. Image quality (especially at higher ISOs) is stunning, the camera a joy to use and the speed and responsiveness breathtaking. If there is an EOS-1Ds Mark III - bating 'D3X' coming this year it will have quite a job to do to better the D3; possibly the most compelling, capable and well-rounded professional digital SLR ever made.

What's five grand between friends?

Today is my first blogiversary.

Yay!

Now, who brought the cake?