By Debbie Schlussel
Most people never attain one dream job in a lifetime. But Leland Melvin got two. He’s now a NASA astronaut and was an NFL player. Well, sort of. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions but an injury kept him from having an NFL career. But in college, he set records on the gridiron. And he’ll be aboard the Atlantic Space Shuttle, next month.
Still, to be drafted to play pro ball and go to space is interesting and cool. Melvin apparently has a lot to give thanks for, this Thanksgiving:

Leland Melvin’s career has largely been defined by his ability to use his hands: first to catch a football and then hold onto it as he ran down the field.

College Football Star & Astronaut Leland Melvin

Now, his professional success depends on his ability to maneuver a joystick and other controls as he wields a robotic arm on a spaceship.
Melvin is NASA’s only astronaut who is a former professional athlete, having been drafted by the Detroit Lions football team in 1986. He will make his first trip into orbit on space shuttle Atlantis, which NASA hopes to launch Dec. 6.
Melvin talked to USA TODAY last week about the thrill of being an astronaut and his injury-shortened days as a wide receiver.
“If I’d made the final 45 end roster – played in some post-season games, gotten a ring – that would be nice,” he says. But “flying in space . . . it’s one of the most amazing things I can think of.”
Melvin, 43, doesn’t fit neatly into the stereotypes of a jock or an astronaut out of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. At the University of Richmond, he set career records for receptions ‚Äî at least one pass per game ‚Äî and receiving yards. He also earned a degree in chemistry, even though his lab sessions required him to miss chunks of football practice.
Drafted in the 11th round by the Lions after graduation, Melvin tore his hamstring during pre-season practice. He was invited to training camp with the Dallas Cowboys but tore his hamstring again. His career with the NFL was over.
Thanks to his academic talents, he had other options. As he pursued pro football, Melvin kept himself afloat in part by working in a lab at NASA’s Langley Research Center. After his football dreams died, he earned a master’s degree in materials-science engineering and did research on fiber optics at Langley.
Growing up in Lynchburg, Va., the son of two school teachers, Melvin had no strong yearning to become an astronaut. That remained true after he joined NASA in 1989, until a former colleague won a spot in the astronaut corps and gave him an insider’s view of the job.
Melvin realized “the math and science (aspect) was there, the physical side was there,” he says. “So I think it was a good marriage for where I was in my life . . . It’s been great. It’s been one of the best jobs I’ve ever done.”
At a muscular 6 feet tall and 205 pounds, Melvin looks the part of a man who made his living off his speed and strength. These days, Melvin’s practices focus on the International Space Station’s robotic arm, which he will operate during Atlantis’ visit to the station.
Not every astronaut passes NASA’s tests to be an arm “driver.” The job takes immense concentration and a knack for visualizing moving objects. A careless move could slam the arm into the space station, potentially opening a hole that would allow the station’s oxygen to escape.
During his flight, Melvin will command the arm to lift a new scientific laboratory out of the shuttle’s cargo hold and install it on the station. He’ll also use the arm to move colleagues who are making spacewalks, a job so tricky that “the hairs on your neck should raise up” during the task, as he described it in an interview in 2005. . . .
Melvin waves off a question about whether being an astronaut is as lucrative as playing in the NFL.
“The benefit is the things that you’re allowed to do,” he says. He feels lucky, he says, to be “one of the few people in this world (to) leave the planet and work in the cosmos.”

If only Melvin’s shuttle (or one in the near future) went back to the moon, instead of making these expensive, endless shuttle missions that don’t break enough significant new ground.

By Debbie Schlussel
Well, if you’re Jamie Lee Curtis, you won’t have any problems filling out an application for San Francisco’s new ID card, starting next year.
That’s because transgender activists complained that a city-issued ID (the kind usually obtained by illegal aliens when they can’t get driver’s licenses) would cause them problems if they had to spend time legally changing a name and “gender designation”. This way, they won’t be outed as a former man or woman.
And, FYI, they also did this to help illegal aliens. Open closet, open borders. Ah, now I get it:

In America’s Out of Closet City, Illegal Aliens, The Village People,
RuPaul, and Abu Moskowitz No Longer Need to Declare Gender

Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who introduced the measure, says illegal immigrants will benefit most. They will be able to open bank accounts and use the card for city services such as checking out library books.

No kidding.
And if police or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities seek an illegal alien named Chris or Pat or some other gender-ambiguous name, this new genderless card will help the illegal alien elude them even more. They won’t know if they seek a he or a she . . . or an it. This is San Francisco, after all.

By Debbie Schlussel
By now, you’ve probably heard the news that Neil Diamond disclosed that he wrote his hit “Sweet Caroline” for Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, because of a LIFE Magazine photo of her on a horse when she was . . . 9(?!) and he was 25(?!).
The story–which belongs in People Magazine–was on the new People Magazine telecasts, last night: NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.
Says Diamond:

The star explained how he had been a “young, broke songwriter” when he saw a photograph of the president’s daughter in a magazine.
“It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony,” he recalled. “It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there.”
Years later, holed up in a hotel in Memphis, he would write the words and music in less an hour.

I like Neil Diamond’s “America,” which has sadly become an anthem to illegal alien advocates and the open borders crowd. But I’m wondering: Is it just me . . . or is there something weird about a guy who is in his mid-to-late 20s writing a song about a girl that young, featuring these lyrics (remember Kennedy was 12 when the song came out, but was between 6 and 9 when it was written)?:

Hands, touching hands, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline . . . .
And now I, I look at the night, whooo
And it don’t seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two, oh . . . .
How can I hurt when holding you
Oh, one, touching one, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline

Neil Diamond gave the second largest divorce settlement in U.S. history ($150 million–at the time it was the largest, but now Michael Jordan’s, just over $150 mill, is #1) to his second ex-wife, Marcia Murphey. Maybe she had something like this on him . . . ?
Just wondering.

By Debbie Schlussel
Lots of new choices at the movies, all out today for the big Thanksgiving box office weekend. Also, don’t forget that the EXCELLENT “Blade Runner: The Final Cut” (Read my review and preview) is in theaters nationwide and meant to be seen on a giant theater screen. “Enchanted” is, by leaps and bounds, the best of the new:
* “Enchanted“: I can’t say enough good things about this charming, funny, novel movie that both you and your kids will enjoy and find very entertaining, as I did. This is classic, magical Disney like I remember from when I was a kid. Except, there is a twist–it’s mixed with comedy and lots of parody of Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and all the other similar fairy tales. The movie is very briefly animated, but mostly shot with real human actors.

What happens when an animated Cinderella-style character is about to marry her Prince, but then gets shoved into the real-life world of fast-paced, cynical New York, completely unequipped for the Blackberry world of contemporary big-city America, with its nasty divorce fights and other things you don’t see in fairy tale fantasies?
Giselle, magnificently played by actress Amy Adams, finds out. She meets her prince and is about to marry him, when his evil, wicked witch mother, the Queen (played, appropriately, by real-life evil, wicked witch Susan Sarandon) pushes Giselle down a fountain. She lands in a New York sewer and hasn’t a clue how to fend for herself in the real world, when she encounters a divorce lawyer, Patrick Dempsey, and his daughter. Dempsey thinks she’s a crazy woman who’s lost her mind. After all, there are no real fairy-tale princesses who walk around New York in hoop-skirted ball gowns. Still, they take her in to try to help her, at Dempsey’s daughter’s urging.
Soon, though, even jaded divorce lawyer Dempsey comes to believe . . . sort of. As it turns out, the fairy tale Giselle’s advice, traditional values, and outlook on life is wiser and more meaningful than that of the cynical real world New Yorkers. Meanwhile, the Prince, James Marsden, has come through the Times Square manhole to New York (in his princely get-up) to rescue his would-be bride. His right-hand man, secretly working for the Queen, tries to sabotage it.
Magical and funny scenes throughout this one, including one in which Giselle gets rats, cockroaches, and pigeons to clean up Dempsey’s messy New York apartment and cuts up his expensive, fancy drapes, making them into fairy-tale style dresses. There’s also a GREAT line uttered by Sarandon to Dempsey about him (and other modern guys) being a girlie-man, with a woman rescuing him. I agree with the line, but it’s ironic that Tim Robbins’ shrew is uttering it.
Best line in the movie (among many):

Some girl’s crying like we’re on “Oprah.”

Truth in advertising is in the title of the film, though: “Enchanted” is truly enchanting. Take your whole family and enjoy.
* “The Mist“: I’ve already asked, regarding this movie, whether Stephen King hates Christians. This movie is based on one of King’s novellas (“Skeleton Crew“) and starts out like one of those great, classic King silver screen thrillers. But, a third of the way through, it degrades into an anti-Christian, anti-conservative, anti-U.S. military, pro-suicide rant.
A movie poster designer (the very hot Thomas Jane) and his family lose their power when a storm hits their New England town. They notice a mist spreading over the lake. Jane and his son go into town to get food and supplies, when they become trapped inside the supermarket with other townsfolk and vacationing New Yorkers. They are trapped by the mist and the creatures–giant insects and flying dragons–it spawns. The creatures are killing everyone in their path–anyone who dares go outside. A warning: It’s quite violent, bloody and gross, ie., a body cut in half, etc.
Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), thumping her Bible and blaming stem cell research and abortion, is the classic Tinseltown version of evil, conservative Christian villain. She says we deserved the plague–the mist and its monsters–and its resulting killings and dismemberments. She preaches and screams and rants and raves. Soon, she has whipped most inside the supermarket into a frenzied mob. She demands sacrifices–human ones–and says the soldiers must die. She uses her Christianity, the Bible, and her positions on stem cells and abortion as an excuse for her bloodthirstiness and gets the mob to kill a soldier–he is the sacrifice “for our sins.”
(Uh, sorry, but religious, conservative Christians are the biggest supporters of our soldiers, not the murderers of them. That’s the role of Hollywood, which strongly opposes their every move.)
I’m told by those who’ve read King’s novella, that Mrs. Carmody is a minor figure. But in this, she–the Christian conservative zealot–is a major character. She’s the bigger enemy to mankind, far worse than the plague of giant human-eating and -killing creatures in the mist.
Soon, we learn that–of course–the mist is a result of scientific experiments conducted by the evil U.S. military at a nearby Army base. Yup, it’s all the military’s fault that people are being attacked and eaten by giant bugs and monsters.
In addition to all of this, I hated the ending of this blatant anti-Christian, anti-conservative propaganda film (though some might say there is a redeeming part regarding the military). But I can’t say what the ending is, because Stephen King has threatened to hang me to death by my throat. And I wouldn’t want that.
He and (director/scriptwriter Frank Darabont) already showed he means business, by trying to do the same thing to the conventional Hollywood enemies: Christians, conservatives, and the U.S. military.

* “Hitman“: I wish I liked this movie because it is about a cool hitman (Timothy Olyphant) and has lots of cool guns. But that’s all there is. It’s about the same as most movies based on video games (as this one is): bad.
The plot–if you can call it that–is nonsensical. Something about a Russian leader having a body double and hiring a hitman to kill him or his double–I’m not sure. Then, someone is trying to complete a hit on the hitman and is setting him up. I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe you can. Or maybe you can tell me why a hitman–who has the whole world’s law enforcement authorities, including Interpol inspector Mike (a former love interest on “Desperate Housewives”)–can elude everyone when he has a distinct barcode tattoo on the back of his completely-shaven head. I mean, no-one around the world notices this is the guy with the barcode tattoo they’re looking for?
The whole thing is weird. Add that to the fact that the movie can’t decide what it wants to be. At times it’s a parody of itself. There’s a scene in which a number of men with shaven-bald heads and barcode tattoos on the backs of them surround Olyphant (Agent 47–he was never given a real name, as he was raised from birth to be an assassin) to kill him. He says something about fighting fair, so they all drop their guns and magically pull out two long swords each from inside their pants (and start dueling with two swords apiece).
HUH?
That’s an exclamation that will go through your head throughout this silly movie. Like I said, the plot is non-sensical, the film is a mess. The guns are cool, but the extreme violence and blood in this movie has no rhyme or reason.
Also, the foreign accents–and there are a lot of them in this–are really bad. The only believable one is that of the Russian actress love “interest,” who tries to come on to Agent 47 but can’t seal the deal (since he’s apparently asexual). Her purpose in the movie is to repeatedly expose her breasts to a guy whose not interested and moviegoers who apparently need that to make up for the rest of what this movie lacks. And that’s it. Add to that, the English guy from “Desperate Housewives” with his crummy pseudo-Scottish accent. And the mean, one-handed guy from “Prison Break” playing a corrupt Russian police honcho with his bad Russian accent.
Only see this if you like guns and shooting, have two hours and ten bucks to waste, and don’t care for a storyline whatsoever. Otherwise, skip it.
* “August Rush“: Why is a movie about August coming out when it’s just getting cold? Well, because August Rush has nothing to do with the summer month. It’s the assumed name of a young boy who is hidden from his mother after she conceives him in a one-night stand. Oh, and the villains in this movie are all evil White men. The heroes, all Black. But I’m sure race had nothing to do with it. Right?
A young kid in an orphanage constantly hears musical compositions and pitches in his mind that others can’t. He insists to a social worker (Terrence Howard) (Good Black Guy #1) that he doesn’t want to be adopted because he knows his parents are coming for him. He’s convinced. Howard takes him under his wing.
Then we flash back to his parents. Keri Russell plays a famous concert cellist touring the country with her evil manager father. One night, at a party, she meets and falls in love with an apparent illegal alien Irish rock singer. They have a one-night stand, and she conceives this child. Also, they’d planned to meet up again, but it doesn’t happen. Her evil father fears the kid will get in the way, so he tells her she lost the kid in childbirth. (Evil White Man #1.)
Meanwhile, her son runs away from the orphanage and is taken in by an evil Bono-look alike character (Robin Williams), who discovers the runaway kid’s musical genius and farms him out for performances and keeps him captive. (Evil White Man #2). He gives him the prententious name, “August Rush.”
Meanwhile, Russell always feels as if her son really never died. She goes to New York and discovers she is right, that her father faked her signature and gave him up. She meets social worker Terrence Howard who helps her try to find her son (Good Black Guy #1, again).
Meanwhile August Rush escapes evil Robin Williams, where he is rescued by a Black preacher and his church members (Good Black Guys #2-50) and put in Giulliard, where he becomes composer prodigy and–at age 10–is conducting a symphonic concert in Central Park.
Magically, the Irish illegal alien rocker who has been searching for his love (and has apparently been in America roaming free and illegally all these years–shocker)–cellist Keri Russell–and cellist Keri who has been searching for her son–now named “August Rush”–eventually and conveniently, all find each other–despite a series of evil White men, and because of the help of the very nice Black men–and live happily ever after. The end.
I’m all for portraying Black Americans in a positive light. But come on. The reverse racist overtones in this movie are pretty stark.
In the end, it does have sort of a pro-life/importance of family message. Mildly entertaining, a little chick flickish, and way too neat and convenient in most parts of the plot. But does have some charm to it.

* “This Christmas“: Although I found this cliched movie–about a Black family that re-unites for Christmas–somewhat entertaining, I cannot understand why so many Black directors/producers/screenwriters make movies about their ethnic group that are filled with the usual negative stereotypes. This one, written and directed by Preston A. Whitmore III, is overloaded with them.
Ma’Dere Whitfield is the single mother who raised her entire family on her own (Steretype #1-though this is born out by truth, since the majority of American Black households are headed by single mothers). Her husband abandoned her and the kids to pursue a jazz career (Stereotype #2). Her two single daughters are sluts (Stereotype #3), and the one who is married is being cheated on (which she knowingly accepts) by her greedy husband who wants her mother to sell her dry cleaners biz so he can get his hands on the money (Stereotypes #4-6).
Her most successful son is a soldier, but he goes AWOL (Stereotype #7) to spend Christmas with the family, pulls a gun on people at a nightclub (Stereotype #8), is secretly married to a White woman (Stereotype #9), whom he got pregnant (Stereotype #10). The oldest son is a loser who pursued a musical career and is being pursued by two Black loanshark hitmen (Stereotypes #11-13). Another son (phenomenal singer Chris Brown) secretly wants to be singer (Stereotype #14). And, oh yeah, mom Ma’Dere is secretly living “in sin” with the church deacon (Stereotype #15).
The film gets points from me since it features one of my fave funk songs, Kool & The Gang’s “Get Down On It” almost in its entirety, in a scene where the family dances in a soul train (Stereotype #16).
In the end, everything works out and ends “happily.”
The soundtrack of this movie is a thorough repertoire of pop classic Christmas renditions, including Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas,” from which the movie gets its title. The biggest names in the movie are Delroy Lindo and Regina King.
I especially enjoyed watching the movie with an entirely Black audience. The woman sitting next to me–I’m not making this up–uttered many “No you didn’t”s and “You know that’s right”s to the screen, which made it more entertaining.

By Debbie Schlussel
. . . Fought as hard for the life of Anne Frank (and the other Jews they let the Nazis take to slaughter) as they fight for the life of her . . . tree?!
Yup, the Dutch have their priorities straight. Go green, baby!
She was murdered by the Nazis in Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp (in Germany), the last camp in which my grandparents were imprisoned and worked (and where my mother was born after the war). My grandfather told me he remembered her, beyond emaciated and dying.
Remember – In the Netherlands: Trees, direly important. Jews, not so much.

By Debbie Schlussel
Sorry, Joe Isuzu is still with us and doing ads for sleazy personal injury plaintiffs law firms.
But the guy you liked deep down, Mr. Whipple a/k/a actor Dick Wilson is gone. He joins other TV ad icons like Clara Peller, the “Where’s the Beef?” lady, in a better place.
Before his acting career, he served in the Canadian Air Force during World War II. After becoming Mr. Whipple, the L.A. Times says:

Wilson was so well-known as Mr. Whipple that he ranked as the third-most-recognized American in a 1978 poll, behind former President Richard Nixon and evangelist Billy Graham, Indiana’s Fort Wayne News Sentinel reported in 2001.

His era is a bygone one. Those were the days when people became famous as TV pitchmen, who were hawking items and pushing American commerce. That’s far more laudable than today’s icons of hotel heiresses in sex videos.
Wilson was 91. Rest in Peace, Mr. Whipple. And don’t worry. We’re not squeezing the Charmin.

By Debbie Schlussel
Monopoly is one of my fave board games. But who knew that, during World War II, the game helped save British soldiers fighting the Nazis?
In one of the coolest stories about history-meets-pop-culture, Brian McMahon of Mental Floss Magazine writes that special editions of Monopoly helped Brit soldiers escape Nazi prisons and war camps. Since the article is not available to non-subscribers, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version from today’s Wall Street Journal “The Informed Reader”:

World War II Weapon: Monopoly With Real Money
The board game Monopoly served allied prisoners as a real-life tool to get out of jail during World War II, says Brian McMahon in Mental Floss, a magazine devoted to intellectual esoterica.
In 1941, the British Secret Service asked the game’s British licensee John Waddington Ltd. to add secret extras to some sets, which had become standard elements of the aid packages that the Red Cross delivered to allied prisoners of war. Along with the usual dog, top hat and and thimble, the sets had a metal file, compass, and silk maps of safe houses (silk, because it folds into small spaces and unfolds silently). Even better, real French, German and Italian currency was hidden underneath the game’s fake money. Departing allied soldiers and pilots were told that if they were captured they should look out for the special editions, identified by a red dot in the Free Parking space. Any sets remaining in the U.K. were destroyed after the war. Of the 35,000 prisoners of war who escaped German prison camps by the end of the war, “more than a few of those certainly owe their breakout to the classic board game,” says Mr. McMahon.
The game also played a role in the Cold War, with communist countries declaring the game capitalist propaganda and banning it. Despite such edicts and Marxist-inspired alternative games such as Hungary’s “Save” or Russia’s “Manage,” smuggled versions of the capitalist diversion were hits behind the Iron Curtain.

Very cool.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: Oops! The link didn’t work. Fixed. ****
Check out my column in today’s New York Post on Hezbollah’s Jihad Jane, Nada Nadim Prouty, and her other family connections. Since the FBI and CIA missed this, why would you trust their counterterrorism and intelligence capabilities for anything? (Counting the minutes until Sean Hannity rips this off.)

Nada Nadim Prouty: Hezbollah’s Illegal Alien FBI/CIA Agent Is Part of Larger Pan-Syrian Terrorist Family

By Debbie Schlussel
. . . Or is there just something really wrong about Ted Kennedy a/k/a “Club Ted” and his wife reading the love letters between John and Abigail Adams at a special Fanueil Hall presentation of the new book, “My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams“?
I mean, really, what would John Adams think, if he knew that the man impersonating him in reading his letters was the same guy who:
a) apparently drowned the girlfriend he got pregnant;
b) woke up his nephews for a night of carousing, after which a rape was committed by one of them;

Acting Job: Club Ted Now Into Adams’ Love Letters
c) had sex with a different woman during lunch in the middle of La Brasserie restaurant;
d) was photographed having sex with yet another woman atop a boat in the middle of the ocean off the coast of France;
e) repeatedly cheated on his first wife and probably his current one; and
f) got expelled out of Harvard for cheating?
Yup, I think John . . . and Abigail are turning over in their graves on this one.
The Adams’ story is about a great, loving union and partnership that helped our nation in its early days. Ted Kennedy’s story is about a “great” 1-2 minute lusting union and transaction that helped Club Ted in his non-premature days.
But, hey, at least Ted knew how to swim. Driving, not so much.

By Debbie Schlussel
You’d think that Condi Clueless a/k/a Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be sensitive to redlining and restrictive covenants. You’d think that someone who is familiar with old school policies in some neighborhoods and businesses of “No Blacks Allowed” would be against “No Jews Allowed.”
But you would be wrong.
Today, if there were signs up–or even secret policies–of neighborhoods not allowing Jews or Blacks to live in a certain neighborhood or to build a new home there, the Justice Department would be on their rear ends like Rosie O’Donnell on a slice of pizza.

But, in Israel, well . . . the U.S. has a different policy. And Clueless Condi is the chief architect and enforcer of the Nazi-like Judenrein policy.

No Jews Allowed. No Jews Allowed. Just what part of No Jews Allowed didn’t you understand?

That’s the policy Clueless Condi is shouting at Israel, these days. You’d think a woman of color would be sensitive to–no, outraged by–bigoted real estate policies.
But you would be wrong.
In fact, she’s the chief perpetrator. She’s demanding it and pressuring Ehud Olmert to stop allowing Jews to build and own homes in the so-called “West Bank” (but no corresponding requirement of Arabs and Muslims to stop building and buying homes in Israel), in advance of the dumb Bush last attempt at a Nobel Peace Prize a/k/a The Annapolis Conference, next week.
Meanwhile, in exchange for the pleasure of acquiescing to the Condi-demanded bigoted housing policy, Israel gets the privilege of . . . releasing 441 murderous terrorists into the general population?! GUH-Reat deal. It’s the kind of deal they gave Jews in the concentration camps, wherein they could turn in their fellow Jew to his/her death in exchange for a piece of bread.
Yup, the next time you hear Condi Rice talk about how she’s “risen above racism,” don’t believe her hype. She’s not only not “risen above” it.
She’s perpetrating it. That it’s in a different parcel of land makes no difference.
I suppose this is supposed to be an improvement from the signs that were once posted, “No Jews or Dogs Allowed.”
The dogs have elevated their status. The Jews, not so much.