Dictators For Obama

With friends like these… What do Russia’s near dictator Vladimir Putin, Cuba’s actual dictator Raul Castro and Venezuela’s almost dictator Hugo Chavez have in common? All of them have indicated that they want to see Barack Obama win his re-election bid. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be seeing any of these endorsements in an Obama campaign ad this year, do you?

Wait, is that a political ad? I’m still scratching my head over a very suggestive television ad the Barack Obama campaign has been using. This one features a young woman comparing voting for Obama to having sex. I’m not kidding. “Your first time shouldn’t be with just anybody,” she says. “You want to do it with a great guy.” The star of the ad is Lena Dunham, creator of the HBO series “Girls,” who boasts in the commercial, “I voted for Barack Obama.” And this is supposed to help the President gain more female votes?

USA Today gets it backward. The Oct. 24 headline had it exactly wrong: “Chick-fil-A thrives despite gay rights controversy.” No, fellows, it isn’t despite the outcry against the chain by the gay-rights brigade that business for the chicken-sandwich purveyor has increased sharply. It was because of it and because thousands of new customers liked what Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy said in defense of traditional marriage.

Happy birthday, Tarzan. One hundred years ago, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ most famous character, Tarzan, first appeared in print. But it was not until 1932, when Johnny Weissmuller starred in “Tarzan the Ape Man,” that we got to hear Tarzan’s legendary yell. Tarzan has delighted generations of armchair adventurers who followed his exploits in scores of books, dozens of movies, a series of comic books and even a Broadway play.

–Chip Wood