DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Congratulations are in order!

President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have won an award from the League of Conservation Voters. They share the top spot in LCV’s 2004 Dirty Dozen award, for consistently trashing the environment.

Way to stay “on message,” boys! The American people crave consistency, and you have not wavered from your focus on improving energy-company profits since the day you took office!

The president and VP are joined by a bipartisan crew of toxin-spewing Representatives, all of whom are guilty of such eco-crimes as:

• letting corporate polluters off the hook (in exchange for campaign donations, in some cases)
• delaying clean air protections, even in cities with documented poor air quality
• exempting oil and gas construction sites from the Clean Water Act, threatening drinking water
• revising forest management regulations to limit environmental review and public participation
• threatening water resources for farmers and ranchers
• allowing more arsenic in South Dakota’s drinking water

Debris.com tips its oil-stained hardhat to the full Dirty Dozen, which has a few open spots, so don’t get any ideas because there’s still room for you:

1. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney (tie)
2. Rep. Bob Beauprez (R, Colorado)
3. Rep. Max Burns (R, Georgia)
4. Rep. Richard Burr (R, North Carolina)
5. Rep. Tom DeLay (R, Texas)
6. Rep.George Nethercutt (R, Washington)
7. Rep. Collin Peterson (D, Minnesota)
8. Rep. Rick Renzi (R, Arizona)
9. Fmr. Rep. John Thune (R, South Dakota)

There is no particular prize associated with the “Dirty Dozen” award, except that all these officials get to breathe the same dirty air as the rest of us. Hey, maybe this is a democracy after all.

(VP Dick Cheney was previously recognized in this space for eminence in war profiteering.)

Aron Ralston, who became famous for sawing off his own arm to evade certain death after a mountaineering accident, published his autobiography last month. Preliminary reviews for the book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, are good. The cover photo alone seems to be worth the purchase price. (zoom in)

The weekend Chronicle ran a great interview with Tom Waits.

Old-time show business is on his mind. He looks down at the notebook again and comes back with the name of the 19th century French stage star who did vaudeville late in life.

“Sarah Bernhardt,” he says. “She was playing Juliet in her 70s and had one leg. Barnum and Bailey bought her leg, the leg that was amputated, and they had it in a tank with some formaldehyde and fish. It was being displayed as the leg of Sarah Bernhardt, and at one point her leg was making more money than she was when she was playing joints. I always think of that when I get depressed. I think that’s got to really hurt.”

By the way, this one is a real interview, unlike my brush with greatness (and pancakes).

In response to my inquiry about how involved he has been with his wedding plans, my future brother-in-law replied, “Oh, I’m definitely involved; I have my hand in just about everything except the dress.”

Heh.

ArtWorks Downtown, in San Rafael, hosts an exhibition of movie models from Industrial Light and Magic this month. The show is called Magic Models; it runs through the end of October. On October 22, the venue will host a discussion with model builders from ILM.

Pieces from about a dozen movies are displayed. I expected a “greatest hits” show, which given ILM’s filmography would fill a city block. So I was disappointed at both the scope and scale of this show, which fits comfortably in a single exhibition room of about 400 square feet.

I liked the Mission: Impossible piece best, perhaps because it was the one movie from which models were taken that I’d seen. Also it was an impressive sequence: fly a helicopter into a tunnel behind a bullet train, have actors leap between train and helicopter, then (natch) blow it all up. The helicopter was built to 1/8 scale and bolted to a sort of railway car which could move at 50 mph, the speed necessary to simulate a 200 mph stunt.