The “Prestige” of John McCain

While reading some of the latest anti-Obama rants and pro-McCain rants (although the latter are far fewer in number than the former), the great movie “The Prestige” came to mind.  In particular, the great lines by Michael Caine where he defines “The Prestige”.  In this scene Caine explains the three stages of magic.  The first stage is the “Pledge”.   In this stage, the magician shows you an ordinary object…let’s say a dove.  You may even be asked to come and examine it to prove how ordinary it is. 

The second stage is called “The Turn”, which is when the magician causes the object to change:  usually, he makes it disappear.   Pretty good, but not really impressive enough.

To really make it a perfect trick, you must bring the object back.  And that is “The Prestige”.

So think of a magician, holding a dove in his hand, who puts it in a top hat.  Says abracadabra, waves his hand over the hat, and suddenly the dove is gone.  He waves the empty hat in front of the audience.  Then wait…he has a second thought.  He waves his hand over the hat again.  Suddenly a dove flies out of the hat that was empty only seconds before.  There is the Wow. 

Here’s the John McCain Version:

The Pledge:  This is John McCain in the year 2000.  The guy who bucked both his party and President Bush on torture and campaign finance reform.  He cooperated with (gasp!) Democrats.  He had no use for, and sharply criticized the religious Right.  Come up onto the stage and see for yourself.  He’s real.  Touch his feathers. 

The Turn:  This is the John McCain in the year 2004.  He has been disappeared, as they say of the missing in South America.  This picture, which I shamelessly stole from jackster’s blog on the Tallahassee Democrat website, says it all:

I suspect some serious wheeling and dealing took place here, along the lines of, “You support me for re-election this year, and we’ll let you be President next time.”

The Pledge:  And Poof!  John McCain is back.  Except just like in the movie, there’s some essential ingredient missing, which you might call a soul.  He still has feathers, they just aren’t the same feathers. 

It’s Not Just the Heat, It’s the Money

Having taken my buddy Intimidator’s advice, at least partially, today I went out and sprung for a portable air conditioner.  Tim, as we affectionately call him, had suggested a small window unit, but thinking about the logistics of that uh….intimidated me.  I’m a 117 pound weakling.

As it happened, I found two models, one of which was 9,000 BTUs, the other was 10,000 BTUs, for exactly the same price!  On sale! ($299.00 plus tax, which was $100.00 off.) So did I get the bigger bang for the buck?  Well of course not.  The 9,000 BTU one was lighter (50 pounds).  Even so, it required a lot of dragging and huffing and puffing to get it in the house and out of the stupid box with it’s chastity belt of styrofoam on both ends.  Then came the real fun. 

Reading the directions.  “Put Tab A into Slot B” kind of stuff.  Engineering is not my strong suit.  But miraculously, I got it to work.  In short order it cooled down the area the dogs and the cat and I are all living in to a balmy 81 degrees.  And if you stand right in front of it, you are experiencing Nirvana.  I could tell it made a real difference to the dogs.  To me too, such as being able to remain clothed.  Good thing I don’t have fur. 

Now I can’t resist telling you some of the impressive features it has.  For one, a timer.  You can set it to automatically go on and off anywhere from 1 to 12 hours.  (I think of that as “sleep mode”.)  And it has a remote control.  That just slays me.  I won’t be tempted to use it, because it came without batteries.

So the deal is, now that I bought this gadget, repair of the central AC will have to be on hold.  Like I said, it’s not just the heat, it’s the money.