Maybe if someone had blown up the hotel...

Today on NPR's "All Things Considered," while E.J. Dionne was suggesting that Democrats vote more than once, Rich Lowry, editor of The National Review, decided to use the film, Lost In Translation to make an analogy. An important aspect of this construction was Lowry's declaration that "nothing happened" in the film, and therefore he dislikes it.

I am not asking anyone to like Lost In Translation (though I did); there are reasons to not like it. But to say that nothing happened in it just goes to show you how far you can get in journalism and still be a clueless yahoo.

Let's see...two marriages disintegrate, a long-running film storyline barrier is broken when a middle-aged man develops a close friendship with a young babe but decides that sex is forbidden, the funniest prostitution scene in film history takes place, an actor whose role is an important symbol in the film turns in a memorable comic performance. Nothing much happens, I guess, if you are the car crash type.