Looking for news today on a potential re-release of the first season of Twin Peaks on DVD, I stumbled upon this review of the film “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” released after the cancellation of the show.

I remember my mom driving me out to the Leitersburg Cinema in Hagerstown, MD and watching it nearly alone in the theatre save for the prescence of three solitary men scattered menacingly around the auditorium. The movie had a profound impact on me — I enjoyed it on a purely emotional level, as Lynch tends to work in the realm of psychology and feeling. It was frightening and exciting, offering dark nightmare worlds that intersected with the real one. I was startled by how different the film was than the show, how alien in tone from the quirky mystery show I religiously taped on VHS week end and week out so that I could experience it forever.

The review I linked above I think accurately and fairly asseses the film, which was grossly underrated at the time. But to me, trapped in Western Maryland before the onset of the information age, it was a flood of adventurous ideas and images unlike anything I’d ever been exposed to. Now, such things are available to everyone — in multiplexes, in the DVD racks at the local Borders. But back in 1992, it was a lucky thing to get a week-long engagement of such a film. I remember it fondly, despite its many flaws.

This year’s television season has been a bit of a mixed bag. With my girls taking so much of my time, I’m able to catch most of what I like (plus Dora the Explorer) on my DVR. I missed out on a lot of good stuff the first half of the season — Weeds and Dexter stand out the most — because of the girls. Now, I watch everything I want to see, just really really slowly.

1. Battlestar Galactica - This show used to be my favorite, but I think it’s run out of steam this year. The New Capcrica story was brilliant, a high water mark for the show, and it looks like they spent the bulk of their effects budget on it. The rest of the season has been dedicated to mostly effects-free stand-alones, many of which utilized only a few of Galactica’s standing sets. Season two dragged after the big Pegasus storyline, too, but season three has been considerably worse in that regard. Couple that with the fact Ronald Moore has lost what the show is about — thinking of it as a character drama, rather than a military scifi character drama — and spent much of the season making our leads (Kara, Lee) unlikable, I’m not sure the writing team really knew what to do after New Caprica. Things are starting to turn around, but Starbucks’ big episode, “Maelstrom,” lost a lot of its emotional impact because the writers made me hate her. The three-part finale is definitely turning things in the right direction, and I hope the lower episode count in season four will make the writers focus more on the story essentials and less on the soap opera.

2. Rome - Sheer balls to the wall brilliance. Knowing that they only have ten episodes to complete the series, the production team is going full tilt, cramming as much amazing stuff as they can into every 60-minute episode. The rise of Augustus Caeser is even better than the fall of Julius Caeser, and Mark Antony is one of the best characters in the history of television, standing toe-to-toe with other HBO favorites such as Al Swearagen on Deadwood. Vorenus and Pullo’s quest to save Vorenus’ children had one of the best pay-offs I’ve seen in a long, long time. I’m sad to see the show go, but what a way to end it. Great stuff.

3. The Office - funnier and more emotionally complicated than any show on television, the Office surpasses the best sitcoms of the past, including its British predecessor. Steve Carrell has made Michael Scott more than just a one-dimensional fool — there’s a whole host of reasons why he is the way he is, and he can be surprisingly kind and sympathetic. David Brent was funny, but Michael Scott seems to be really human. This is my pick for the best show on television — get the DVD’s if you haven’t seen it.

4. Heroes - I didn’t expect to like this one, even with the super hero theme, but it’s quickly become one of my favorites. Drawing from all the best comic book sources — X-Men, Watchmen, Squadron Supreme, even Marvel’s New Universe — Heroes is perhaps the best live-action portrayal of people with special powers. Yes, I know it apes Lost with its host of characters, but the it moves in deliberate arcs, answers questions, and has a lot of excellent plot momentum. This is easily on par with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I’m glad the writers are intent on making each season a finite arc, rather than following the failed open-ended model of Lost and Galactica. People complain about the blatant plagrism and plot holes, but I’m willing to forgive them for the overall experience. HRG, Hiro and Peter Petrelli are three of the best characters on television today.

5. Lost - I think they’ve really righted the ship since the six episode “mini-season” they released in the fall. Last year was a big disappointment, but with the return of most of the season one regulars, I’m glad to see the writers are starting to get a handle on the series. Not as brilliant as the first season, but I don’t feel like I’m going to work when I watch it, now. Jack’s experience with the others, plus Kate, Locke and Sayyid’s quest to save him, has been well-crafted thus far. I’m not sure any answers are coming, but I’m enjoying it, again.

6. 24 - I always lose interest in 24 about a third of the way through, and this season isn’t any exception. Yes, it’s basically recycling seasons past, and I think Manny Coto and Joel Surnow are slacking as they become the darlings of the far right. Still, they are dealing with the fact that Jack Bauer is now the empty husk of a human being, and they are fair about displaying corruption on both the right and the left. But you could have a drinking game centered around the torture sessions alone, and how many times can the terrorists go after LA? Enjoyable as entertainment, but stale in its lack of innovation.

I’ve just finished up a move, so I’m only now playing catchup with all the big news stories of the past several days. I personally don’t take Ann Coulter very seriously, and I find it hard to get stirred up by her “outrageous” antics, which are in fact, quite predictable. Coulter’s bread and butter, her main source of financial wealth, is saying nasty things about Democrats. I’m not even sure Ann herself believes what she writes or says, it looks very much like an act used rile up her audience and elicit the traditional “I’m so shocked” response from the other side, which in turn pumps up her audience even more.

However, referring to John Edwards as a “faggot” really pushed my personal buttons, and had me scratching my head because of the fact that Edwards has concrete proof — in the form of his two children — that he is not gay. Of course, Coulter didn’t mean that he was gay literally, just that he was weak and effeminate.

As I’ve said many times, I am more or less a political moderate, but every time I see Republican behavior like this I go even more firmly into the Democratic camp. You would never see Al Franken referring to a Republican as a “faggot” at an important Democratic meeting. He may be critical, but he would never cross that line. Sure you have your extremists posting on blogs, commenting on blogs, etc., but these aren’t the major party luminaries. Ann Coulter is an important Republican party fixture — by speaking on the CPAC stage, the party is more or less endorsing her views. It’s like saying that core of the Republican party agrees that John Edwards is a “faggot.”

Glenn Greenwald has been covering this issue pretty well over at Salon.com.

However, I think the most telling thing here is who she chose to target. John Edwards is currently ranked third in list of candidates running for the Democratic Party nomination, but I believe unless Al Gore steps in this fall, then Edwards will likely be the nominee. Hillary and Obama are destined to destroy each other. Ann Coulter’s just getting an early start on breaking down the Democratic candidate.

Tina is out attending a meeting of the Craft Mutiny, and I am home alone with our girls. Dora is on the television, and the Arcade Fire’s “Neon Bible” is playing on the stereo. Moments ago, Anya and I danced around to “Keep the Car Running.” She knows it so well that although she can’t sing the words, she goes “Ohhh Ohhhh” in all the right places.

I can’t describe how much I love “Neon Bible.” Arcade Fire means more to me than any other band, and this follow-up may not have the impact on my life that “Funeral” did, but it’s still remarkable. Where “Funeral” centered around loss, grief and personal redemption, “Neon Bible” is about life in post-9/11 America. A lot of bands have taken on this topic (see: Q and Not U, Different Damage; Green Day, American Idiot), but none have really covered the sense of grim despair many of us feel when we turn on the news. The feeling of wanting to run, but not having anywhere to go.

Tina and I luckily got tickets to the band’s upcoming show at DAR in DC. Not quite as intimate as the 9:30 Club, where we saw them just after learning that we were having twins, but great just the same.

A supporter of the war repents:

War opponents said a lot of things that were stupid, cynical and deluded. Some war supporters find comfort in this, I don’t. The opponents were, on the whole, right. We were wrong, and people in Iraq will pay for this mistake for a long time.

Those of us who opposed the war from the beginning were called a lot of names. Back when I wrote about it over at Everything2 in the days leading up to the war, I received no small amount of personal messages “politely” disagreeing with my opinion. I new they were wrong then, and I’m glad to see that they’re starting to acknowledge it themselves.

Yes, some of the war’s opponents were knee-jerk, leftwing peaceniks. But a lot of us weren’t — some of us were people that knew a little about Middle Eastern culture and history, and simply did not believe in the grand goal of democratizing the region through military invasion. I never accepted the line that Saddam was an “imminent threat,” and I never bought into the idea that we should be engaging in social re-engineering in the Muslim world. Both rationales have been proven miserably wrong.

I take no comfort in America’s failures in Iraq, or that I was right about the outcome. The chaos we’ve unleashed there will have far-reaching global consequences. The administration likes to say that we’re there because of the chaos, but the reality is that the chaos is there because of us. I fear that anything we do now will likely fail. Leaving, staying, surging, whatever. There is a wave of sectarian conflict sweeping the Middle East, a tsunami unleashed by the earthquake of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

If only the administration and their supporters had listened to the critics, including some in their own party, not to mention the President’s own father, then things might have been handled differently. I think there’s no question that Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney will be forever be remembered for their failure to win the war in Iraq. No amount of blaming the Democrats for lack of will can change that.

So yeah, I appreciate the introspection of some of those who banged the drum of war. I know that drum has a very nice sound, especially to a generation of men like myself who feel they missed out on history. We all want to be part of something grand — something like the liberation of Europe in World War II. But World War II is an anomaly — most wars in history have been more like Iraq. And that’s what really scares me.

(Hat tip: Kevin Drum)