The Big Mithrandir

	THE TRAIL TO THE FORD OF BRUINEN:
	ELROND's eyes are on the trail as he listens to GANDALF, while walking.
	GANDALF
		I mean we totally fucked it up, man. We fucked up his pay-off.  We got the Black Riders all pissed off at us, and Saruman, he yelled at me a lot, but he didn't do anything.  Huh?
	The eagle is circling overhead and shrieks at them.
	ELROND
		Well, sometimes the cathartic, uh.
	GANDALF
		No No, I'm saying if he knows I'm a fuck-up, why does he leave me in charge of getting this ring back?  Because he doesn't fucking want it back, man!  He's had enough!  He no longer digs power!  It's all a show!  Ok?  But then, why didn't he give a shit about his mithril?  I mean, he knows we never handed off his chest, but he never asked for it back.  The mithril was never in the chest.  The chest was fucking empty, man!  The asshole was hoping that they would keep the ring!  You threw out a ringer for a ringer!
	ELROND
		Huut!  Okay, but how does all this add up to an emergency?
	GANDALF
		Huh?
	ELROND
		I'm saying, I see what you're getting at, 'Dalf, he kept the mithril, my point is, huum, here we are, it's the Third Age, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men is over, so I'm only allowed to intervene if it's a matter of life or death--
	GANDALF
		Will you come off it Elrond.  You're not even fucking Elvish, man.
	ELROND
		What the fuck are you talking about?
	GANDALF
		Man, you're fucking seven-sixteenths mortal.
	ELROND
		What the fuck are you talking about?  I got confirmed when I married Celebrían!
	GANDALF
		Yeah.
	ELROND
		Come on, 'Dalf!
	GANDALF
		Yeah, yeah yeah!
	ELROND
		You know this!
	GANDALF
		Yeah, and five hundred fucking years ago, she went over the Sea.
	ELROND
		So, what are you saying?  When you get separated, you turn in your Grey Havens ticket?  You get bi-focals?  You stop being Elvish?
	GANDALF
		This is the canyon.
	AS THEY TURN:
	ELROND
		I'm as Elvish as fucking Fëanor.
	GANDALF
		Man, you know, it's it's all a part of your sick Celebrían thing man.  Taking care of her fucking eagle.  Going to her fucking forest shrine.  You're living in the fucking past.
	ELROND
		Twenty-one thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Ingwë to Legolas--YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I'M LIVING IN THE FUCKING PAST! I--Jesus. What the hell happened?
	He is looking off as their pace slackens.  GANDALF looks where ELROND is looking.  They see a half-dozen black horses drowned in the river.
	ELROND
		Jesus Christ.

Company's comin'...

What it Would Mean to Create a Third Party

Farley has it right, and mentions the not-unimportant detail that the Whig-to-GOP transition was aided by a violent Democrat-led insurrection that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the prohibition of the GOP's opponents from participating in politics for over a decade. As disappointing as Obama has been, I'm not sure I want to follow Nader into Antietam.

What We Forgot

Ten years ago, this country forgot itself. Again.

We forgot that global modernity is extremely complex, most people haven't adapted to it, and many never will.

We forgot that the bomber always gets through, whether it takes the form of an aircraft, missile, car, or backpack.

We forgot that valuing liberty includes accepting risk, and infringing upon liberty in the name of security requires a sound evaluation of that risk.

We forgot that war inevitably results in not only the death and privation of innocents but also atrocities and dishonor by all its participants.

We forgot that war is the ultimate bonanza for corrupt bureaucrats, embezzlers, grifters, and sadists.

We forgot that torture fails to provide accurate information, sullies our reputation as a force for civilization, provokes similarly barbaric retribution, and unfits our torturers for return to society.

We forgot that warrantless and secret surveillance, detention, interrogation, and execution are fundamentally incompatible with democracy.

We forgot that racial and religious discrimination always wound society and mar the search for justice.

We forgot that to defeat an "existential threat" would be hollow if we also injured our essential liberties.

We have forgotten many of these things before, and later remembered them. Some of them remain forgotten.  My American flag did not fly last Sunday, because I see nothing patriotic about another day that provoked our worst impulses.  It is flying today, as it does every Constitution Day, to express my hope that we remember our better selves.

I Sound My Barbaric Grawp

And I thought that Bellatrix/Neville fanfiction was racy.

I had a roommate who did this once, but he didn't need a customized suit.

A Stronger Loving World

Like everyone else, I didn’t—couldn’t—trust the polls.  Also, the day before the election I finished Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Tradition 1742-2004, and it seemed jejune not to expect the Republicans to do whatever they could to steal the election again.  As Campbell illustrates, few American elections are entirely untainted by fraud, but only the closest are truly susceptible to having their outcomes altered by voter suppression, ballot box stuffing, and bald vote-buying.  Even if the election couldn’t be delivered to the Republicans outright, I was certain that the outcome would fall within the ever-widening "Margin of Litigation," such that legal challenges would prolong the final result for weeks.

Nevertheless, over the final week the more rational part of my brain grasped the objective structural disadvantages working against the Republicans and could posit no plausible scenario for a Republican victory (I had no experience or instinct by which to judge the "Bradley effect," and I regarded it as akin to belief in ghosts; succumbing to one’s fear only gives it more power).  The capacity of the American electorate to be stampeded by Republican fear-mongering had seemed inexhaustible, but I gradually came to tentatively accept that Bush’s "mandate" had run its course by mid-2005, and that the hangover had been painful enough to fill the electorate with resolve, if not remorse.

So, as CNN called Pennsylvania for the Democrats, it seemed possible that we might see a result by the time the polls closed on the West Coast, and I decided I could risk the company of friends.  Ohio had been called for the Democrats by the time I arrived at the party, but I wouldn’t take the champagne out of the fridge until I had heard a concession.  With the giddy Stockholm syndrome of a viewer who cannot walk out of a schlock horror movie, I half-hoped Palin would muscle McCain away from the podium and refuse to concede.  When the phrase "Senator Obama’s victory" passed McCain’s lips, I popped the cork, but I did not feel joy so much as relief.  It was as if I had awakened from a seven-year-long Philip K. Dick fever-dream, escaping from a cartoon world where even the authoritarian thugs cannot help indulging in self-parody just to show that they can get away with it, and returning to a universe where logic and accountability apply.  The world we have regained is not unplagued by fear, malice, or stupidity, but we have remembered that we are also capable of maturity and thoughtfulness, and I drank to that.

The Audacity

Pulp Khazâd

You know what you need?  You need to read this missing scene from the upcoming film adaptation of The Hobbit:

33.	FADE UP:		33.
	ON THE PUPPET SHOW "STRONG HAMMER." Strong is giving a detailed description of all the features on his war hammer "The Smack-5," which he does at the beginning of every episode.
	OFF SCREEN we hear a WOMAN'S VOICE....
	WOMAN'S VOICE (OS)
		Thorin.
	DISSOLVE TO:
	THORIN II'S POV We're in the great hall of a modest two tower citadel in the Blue Mountains, in the year T.A 2855.  THORIN II'S MOTHER, 350ish, stands in the archway leading into the great hall.  ext to her is a Dwarf dressed in the livery of the House of Durin.  The CAMERA is the perspective of a twenty-five-year old Dwarf.
	MOTHER
		Thorin, stop watching puppets a second. We got a special visitor. Now do you remember when I told you your daddy died in a Dol Guldur dungeon?
	THORIN II (OS)
		Uh-huh.
	MOTHER
		Well this here is Capt. Káin. He was in the Dol Guldur dungeon with Daddy.
	CAPT. KÁIN steps inside the room toward the little boy and bends down on one knee to bring him even with the boy's eyeline. When Káin speaks, he speaks with a slight Iron Hills accent.
	CAPT. KÁIN
		Hello, little Dwarf. Boy I sure heard a bunch about you. See, I was a good friend of your Daddy's. We were in that Mirkwood pit of hell over five years together. Hopefully, you'll never have to experience this yourself, but when two Dwarves are in a situation like me and your Daddy were, for as long as we were, you take on certain responsibilities of the other. If it had been me who had not made it, Thráin would be talkin' right now to my son Bofur. But the way it worked out is I'm talkin' to you, Thorin. I got somethin' for ya.
	The Captain pulls a ring out of his pocket.
	CAPT. KÁIN
		This ring I got here was the ring of your ancestor Durin III. It is one of the Seven Rings, given to your ancestor in Khazad-dûm by the first smithy ever to make Rings of Power. You see, up until then, people just sunk the power of divine will into jewels. This ring was made by the elflord Celebrimbor of Eregion, a good friend of your ancestor. Then Sauron launched a war against the Elves, which they calledthe War of Elves and Sauron, and Celebrimbor was killed. Your ancestor closed the doors of Khazad-dûm and used the ring to keep the ancient city safe 'til the Númenoreans landed and drove Sauron away. The ring stayed in Khazad-dûm for 3600 years while Númenor fell and Elves and Men again defeated Sauron and brought about the Third Age, and each of your ancestors handed down the ring and the kingdom of Khazad-dûm to his son, all the way to your ancestor Durin VI. Durin VI was the last Dwarf king to be named Durin, because he was killed by an evil power so horrible that they named it Durin's Bane. Durin's son Náin took the ring, but a year later he too was killed by the evil, which they couldn't call Náin's Bane because it was already called Durin's Bane. Náin's son Thráin then took the ring and led the House of Durin east to found the realm of Erebor, and Thráin became the first King Under the Lonely Mountain. Thráin's descendants kept the ring for 600 more years even while they moved north to the Grey Mountains and delved for treasure 'til they were attacked by dragons. Your great-grandfather Dáin I was king when he was killed by a cold-drake, which is a dragon without fire-breath, which I suppose makes it just a large lizard. Anyway, it killed your great-granddad, and so his son, your granddad, Thrór took the ring and his people and went back to Erebor. Thrór kept the ring for 180 more years until the great dragon Smaug, who certainly could breathe fire, attacked Erebor and killed or drove off all the Dwarves who lived there. So now your granddad had the ring but no kingdom, and he wandered the wilderness for 20 years, suffering the scorn of Men and lamenting the loss of all the great Dwarf realms until at last he came to the doors of Khazad-dûm. Your granddad was facing death and he knew it. No Dwarf had any illusions about ever passing those doors and returning alive. So just before he went in, your granddad asked a caravan guard named Nár, a Dwarf he had never before met in his life, to deliver to his infant son who he had never seen in the flesh, his gold ring. Three days later, your grandfather was killed by Azog and the other Orcs infesting Khazad-dûm. Nár carried the news of your grandfather's death to the rest of the Dwarves, who launched a war of revenge, which they called the War of Dwarves and Orcs. That war raged for six years until the Dwarves returned to the doors of Khazad-dûm and met the great Orc host in the Battle of Azanulbizar in which many lives on both sides were lost. At the end of the battle, Azog was dead and the Orcs were scattered, but Durin's Bane still lurked in Khazad-dûm and the Dwarves returned to their other homes. Nár was as good as his word. After the war, he paid a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father, the last of the Seven Rings. This ring. This ring was on your Daddy's finger when he was captured under the eaves of Mirkwood. Now he knew if the Orcs ever saw the ring it'd be confiscated. The way your Daddy looked at it, that ring was your birthright. And he'd be damned if some snouts were gonna put their greasy gray hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide somethin'. His ass. Five long years, he wore this ring up his ass. Then when he died, he gave me the ring. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little Dwarf, I give the ring to you.
	Capt. Káin hands the ring to Thorin II. A little hand comes into FRAME to accept it.
CUT TO:
34.	INT. SMITHY - NIGHT		34.
	The 270-year old Thorin Oakenshield is dressed in mining gear: jerkin, boots and gauntlets. He lies on a table catching a few zzzzzz's. Almost as soon as WE CUT to him, he wakes up with a start. Shaken by the bizarre dream, he wipes his sweaty face with his gauntlet.