Chez Chesler

Fauns, dwarves, witches, teleportation, and all manner of mythical creatures and talking animals didn't bother me. But I couldn't get over the beavers: Aren't beavers exclusively New World creatures? I was bothered for a bit that the beaver's wife addressed him as Beaver, but I figured it's the same as how Kevin Costner was called Mariner in Waterworld.

Flier Describes T-Shirts As 'Wife-Beaters' Building 19's Jerry Ellis is apologizing that his flier described men's sleeveless undershirts using the slang expression "wife-beaters". When MTV apologizes for glorifying men who make their livings from women forced into selling their bodies and from the men whose depravity causes them to buy these services on its car make-over show, that's when Building 19 should apologize. And then we can go after the estate of Grouch Marx.

Opening Statement by Rep. Sherwood Boehlert at House Science Committee Hearing on "NASA's Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Proposal: "This budget is bad for space science, worse for earth science, perhaps worse still for aeronautics."

BostonHerald.com - Local / Regional News: Infamous neo-Nazi literature found in killer�s room Here is the list of the "trappings of hate" police seized from the apartment of gay-bashing cop killer Jacob Robida. Bold items would also be found in my home.

• Black knife sheath Mine is olive green
• Three Nazi flags taken off bedroom walls I've got lots of other flags
• Two cell phones
• Dog tags with Nazi symbols
• Aryan pin
• Samurai sword I've got a Ginsu knife
• Belt of approximately 85 rounds of ammo I don't use belt ammunition, but I shoot .22, which is bought by the brick
• Large knife and sheath I've got a machete
• Two bumper stickers: “I dress this way to scare your kids” and “My day is not complete until I’ve terrified a complete stranger.” Mine reflect my politics, nothing so cutesy
• Goodbye note addressed to his mother
• Books: “The Turner Diaries,” “The Hitler File,” “The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben” and “Spandau: The Secret Diaries” I bought "The Turner Diaries" after they got so much mention after the Murrah Building was blown up. I don't have much on the Nazis, but I do have a couple of books about Al Quaeda purchased after 9/11
• Two DVDs: “The Occult History of the Third Reich” and “American History X”
• Swastika rubber stamp
• German cross belt buckle
• Folder with racist notes
• Binder with “white power” symbols and slogans Mine are mostly "White Pride" -- my children attend the Malcolm S. White Elementary School
• Notebook of hate lyrics
• Sock and paper towels with possible blood stains
• Computer
• Digital camera
• Unmarked CDs

Are my wife and I the only non-homophobes who didn't like Brokeback Mountain? The week before we'd seen "Memoirs of a Geisha". As we left I said the same thing I'd said when I'd left that other great Asian epic, "The Last Emperor", more than decade ago: "Wow, that was cinematic." I was glad that if I saw it at all I saw it on the big screen. I had trouble telling which character was which. It wasn't so much that they all looked alike but the girls kept again while the Chairman got younger. At least Nobu had that scar. In any case, having dragged my wife to "Geisha" I let her pick the chick flick. The twanging guitars bugged us right from the start. Just what type of gaydar did these cowboys have that they went from huddling for warmth to rough sex in a matter of hours? Wasn't Ennis a virgin until then? Maybe it's because we live in Boston today instead of Wyoming (or Canada) then, but for most of the movie I was thinking "What a bunch of assholes. Why don't they just move someplace more tolerant and be with each other? Even in the years portrayed the Village and the Castro had reasonable communities." From about an hour in my wife was nudging me "When is something going to happen? Don't we have to leave to get the kids?" At about 2 hours in I got a phone call I had to take so I went out to the lobby, and my wife joined me with our coats, and I didn't object.