Governotor?

Reports of Ahnuld's involvement in the strike are greatlyexaggerated according to a UPI report. The Governator says he has not "been asked" to get involved, but he will down the line if the sides come to him. A reasonable stance to take, I suppose, but less proactive than I had expected from an action star.

But wait! The BBC spins it another way! Schwarzathingy is all over this in a backstage kind of way! It's so hard to know who to believe in our post-modern America. (Or Britain, as the case may be.) Is there "objective" truth in these post-Derrida times? Where will we find it? Don't look at me -- I just ask questions, I don't answer them.

Those crazy Democrats are . . . well, they're talking, which is what they're best at. Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards all come out in favor of the WGA. Given that Republicans seem to be best at things that are even less useful than talking, these days, it seems likely that our next President will be on record in support of the union. Yeah, shocker. Hopefully, this will all be over by then. If not . . . well, if not, I don't think there would be any Hollyweird left for a hypothetical future President to meddle with.

This press release states that rallies today on the Western Front will be outside Fox, and no less than Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine fame) will be playing an acoustic set. That sounds . . . weird.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Ray Romano and other members of the cast of the late not-so-lamented sitcom "Everybody Loathes Rain Man" (I assume you can get there) were on the pickets yesterday . . . but the really big name is Jesse Jackson. Gotta tell ya, I'm not sure this is a good thing for the WGA. The man has a fetish for lost caues, I swear.

One last note, and then later I'll have a different sort of post later today if I have time (heading out to Portland's Wordstock Festival soon enough): Software globjillionaire Marc Andreessen takes studios to task on his blog for picking a fight at the wrong time. What makes this the wrong time? This:

You're faced with a massive, once-in-a-lifetime shift in mainstream consumer behavior from traditional mass media, including film and television, to new activities that you do not control: the Internet, social networking, user-generated content, mobile services, video games. It's been snowballing since the mid 90's, for like 12 years -- 12 years of denial and obfuscation -- but it's really rolling fast now.

So the uber-rich technocrati are as split on this issue as anybody else -- Michael Eisner thinks the WGA is dumb, Andreessen thinks the AMPTP is dumb. Maybe they're both dumb. Who knows. You know what this situation could use? A muscle-bound Austrian with a giant bazooka.