Name Your Best Films/Documentaries/Books of 2007?

(And yes, if you have WORSTies, you can cite those, too.)

While Time Magazine and CNN and all the usual suspects rush to TELL US what films, books, and yes, even scandals were the best and worst of 2007, we're all thinking people here who don't need to be told what we can reason for ourselves.

With this in mind, what films/documentaries and books did YOU find to be the best of 2007?

Some of my big favorite books (and they would go on a big favorites list that spans more than just this year, btw) also happened to find their way onto my Christmas wish list, and I've already devoured two. These are:

* "Touch and Go" - Studs Terkel's excellent memoirs (he's a national treasure!)
* "The Omnivore's Dilemma" - Michael Pollan, an excellent follow-up to his mind-opening botany book that discusses how Americans really ARE what we eat
* "Deep Economy" - a must-read by Bill McKibben, a Vermont neighbor, that gives us a real eye-opener of an understanding of how the economy, much of which escapes our attention, drives our lives and politics and the future of this planet

But I can't fail to note the late, forever great Kurt Vonnegut's last book that I literally inhaled, "A Man Without A Country".

As for films and documentaries, I would rank "An Unreasonable Man" (about Ralph Nader), Michael Moore's "Sicko", and "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" among a slew of excellent works that I saw this year.

What about your favorites?

And So It Goes

For those, like me, already missing the bloody hell out of Kurt Vonnegut, let me point you to this lovely picture (courtesy of First Draft) of the man for whom "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time", who welcomed us into the Monkeyhouse and to the Player Piano and into Mothernight, served me endless portions of "Breakfast of Champions", who bore our "Palm Sunday", shared the strange life of Kilgore Trout many times not to mention introduced us to Mr. Rosewater, who made me love Indianapolis simply because he did, delighted me with Timequake and, oh yes, "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian", a slim novel I cannot recommend highly enough.

And, once more, speaking for KV:

"Ting-a-ling, god damn it! Ting-a-ling!"

The World Has Lost A Friend: Kurt Vonnegut Entertained, Informed, Inspired, and Made Our World And Our Own Minds So Much Richer

I am speechless at the death of novelist Kurt Vonnegut.

For years and years and years, I reread every Vonnegut novel of the many, many volumes on a regular basis. I just went through "Timequake" again.

But what many don't know about this beautiful man, one of the best of the humanists we are blessed to have, is how much Kurt worked for peace, for justice in a much more important sense than "an eye for an eye" (please don't insist to me that the Biblical "eye" statement is what God wants; it's ONLY what more than 20 centuries of authors, and editors and rewriters, and copiers, and kings and other men NOT of God have told us).

Since Kurt was very badly injured in a fire several years ago, I knew both by his age and the situation we would not have him for long. Yet Kurt continued, leading up to the Iraq War, to write beautifully in alternative publications such as "In These Times."

I will mourn Kurt tonight. But - damn it - it won't be just for one night. Kurt is part of me, as I suspect he is part of many others; helped us look closer than just the immediate sight, helped us question authority and what is "done" by our governments in our names, helped me be a little smarter (and sarcastic).

No, I suspect I will mourn the loss of him for the rest of my life. But the blessing is that I also get to read and reread him, praise and thank him, strive to be a little better for what he (and hey, his brother the scientist was no slouch) made me see, to look above and beyond and under "the facts", and pray that there will be more Vonneguts, just as I know there will never be quite another man exactly like Kurt.

Good night, Kurt. Thank you. Love you.

Bush Twin Book Deal: She Can't Read, But She Can Write?

And mind you, it's Jenna - the dumb blonde one - who seems to spend much of her time falling off bar stools and dance floors.

Let's see: she's just barely 25, never held a job, has done nothing but party since graduating from a school paid to pass her more than three years ago... oh yeah, I can see why the literary world really needs her autobiography.

Sheesh.