New Year's Eve

A couple years back a friend of mine was disconsolate because she had no date nor the prospect of one for New Year's Eve. We'd go shopping and she'd point to all the evening numbers that are invariably displayed this time of year with a sigh: "That would be great to wear on New Year's Eve."

What is it with New Year's Eve? Some people think that if they don't spend New Year's Eve with a date--someone they can kiss at the stroke of 12--they'll spend the upcoming year alone. Well, I've spent New Year's with friends, family, dates and people I can't stand and I can't see it's made any difference.

Most of the New Year's parties I've attended were pretty bad. The worst being one during which a large proportion of the male attendees gathered round a Three Stooges marathon while the rest of us just sat there, waiting for midnight so we could take our leave. One year in college a bunch of us made plans to go to Times Square, but then decided against it. Then there are those depressing affairs some local bar/restaurants offer in which "complimentary" champagne, noisemakers and breakfast are included in the price.

For a couple of years when my son was little we'd take an early evening skate at Rockefeller Center--amazing how weak my ankles are, you'd think years of high-heel wearing would have given me ankles of steel. Then we'd hightail it out of midtown before the drunks took over and eat junk food and watch videos. That was fun. For a few years, when I was dating a certain someone, we'd get dressed up, go out to dinner and then to a friend's parents' house where they had an all-night poker party going. That was fun, too.

This year I have no plans. And I'm fine with that. We had an impromptu brunch with bagels, champagne and other baked goods, so I've carbo-loaded in preparation for the marathon that will be 2006.

When I finish this post, I'll either order up Batman Begins or watch one of the many movies stored on my DVR. Then, if I'm feeling lively enough, I'll continue reading David McCullogh's 1776. It just started getting interesting: Washington and the rebels have convinced the Redcoats to abandon their siege of Boston thanks to a spectacular ruse.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Miscellany

This year's hot gift: Plastic surgery.

Travel tips: In the developing world.

Music of your life: Advice for young men.

New Year's Eve: Some people really hate it.

Habit-forming: Some TV shows are dangerous.

Tinkerty Tonk 2005

I haven't been here the whole year, but it seemed a good time to look back at what I've been writing about. Some posts I just liked. Others received lots of comments. And some were ignored, perhaps justifiably.

February
Heiresses then and now

March
Supremely wrong

April
Smashing icons

May
Why do they all look the same?

Use a dictionary, people

June
Excellent women

July
Steven Spielberg: Nuancy boy

Breaking up is hard to do

August
Put some decent clothes on, for chrissakes

Pedicure joys

September
Elegy for the slip

October
Women are crazy

November
The pleasures and dangers of rereading

The illusion of progress

December
Other people's children

Wandering Jew

What a lot of dislocation the 20th Century wrought. Robert Skidelsky was born in China, moved to England, returned to China for a year before fleeing to Hong Kong to escape the communists.

Before that, the family business had been one of the largest employers in Siberia, before losing all their Russian holdings in 1918. Thirty years later, they lost their assets in Manchuria, too.

Now Skidelsky returns to China and is welcomed with open arms.

Most popular Olympic sport

Has the ugliest clothes. What is it with those figure skaters?

"It's still all nude pumps and suntan pantyhose," the designer Cynthia Rowley said.

And it is. It is also boot covers the color of support stockings. It is Ice Princess flounces. It is movie theater ruches. It is spangled dirndls and black mesh bondage outfits or spider web appliqués. It is Sherwood Forest tunics with petal hemlines and draped cowls that look as if designed for a hooker who once dreamed she was Maid Marian. It is as cheesy and Lawrence Welk dated as the rumba costumes favored by contestants on shows like "Dancing With the Stars."

It all starts with a clean sink

"Flylady" runs a website that helps people keep their houses clean.

"Many of you can't understand why I want you to empty your sink of your dirty dishes and clean and shine it," states Flylady's website. "It is so simple. I want you to have a sense of accomplishment .... When you get up the next morning, your sink will greet you and a smile will come across your lovely face."

But why the sink? "That's where I started," says Marla. "I picked just one habit - cleaning my sink seemed like the best one - and pretty soon, my whole kitchen got cleaned."

Now do you see why I gripe about dishes in the sink?

Dubious data awards

The most over-hyped, and downright wrong, "scientific" stories covered from the media. Includes the overblown obesity epidemic as well as stories I've never heard: Like the one about toothpaste turning into chloroform, which actually had supermarkets in the UK taking toothpaste off their shelves.

100 things from 2005

From the BBC: Did you know that Nicole Kidman is afraid of butterflies? Or that one in 18 people has a third nipple?

Multiple choice

A meme from Norm.

1. Beatles, Stones or Beach Boys? Stones.
2. Kant, Hegel, Marx? Kant.
3. Cluedo, Monopoly, Scrabble? Scrabble.
4. Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford? Paul Newman.
5. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart? Bach.
6. Australia, Canada, New Zealand? Australia.
7. Groucho, Chico, Harpo? Groucho.
8. Morning, afternoon, evening? Morning.
9. Bridge, Canasta, Poker? Poker.
10. Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Fargo--but I love them all.
11. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau? Hobbes.
12. Cricket, football, rugby? None of the above.
13. Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte? Jane Austen.
14. Parker, Gillespie, Monk? Gillespie.
15. Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham? Pass.
16. Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld? Seinfeld.
17. Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart? Cary Grant. I also love Jimmy Stewart. Couldn't care less about Henry Fonda, though.
18. France, Germany, Italy? Italy.
19. Apple, orange, banana? Apple.
20. Statham, Tyson, Trueman? More cricket, which is to say I don't care and I haven't a clue.
21. Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Rio Lobo? The only western I like is High Noon.
22. Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Ingrid Bergman? Ingrid Bergman.
23. Chinese, Indian, Thai? I'll take them all, if he means food.
24. Handel, Scarlatti, Vivaldi? Handel.
25. Oasis, Radiohead, Blur? Oasis.
26. Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Yes Minister? Fawlty Towers.
27. Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw? Chekhov.
28. American football, baseball, basketball? Baseball.
29. FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton? FDR.
30. Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky? Pass.
31. Paris, Rome, New York? New York.
32. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck? Fitzgerald.
33. Blue, green, red? Red.
34. Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, West Side Story? My Fair Lady.
35. J.S. Mill, John Rawls, Robert Nozick? Nozick.
36. Armstrong, Ellington, Goodman? Armstrong.
37. Ireland, Scotland, Wales (at rugby)? Pass.
38. The Sopranos, 24, Six Feet Under? 24.
39. Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Friday.
40. Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear? Macbeth.
41. Fried, boiled, scrambled (eggs)? Fried.
42. Paths of Glory, Cross of Iron, Saving Private Ryan? Saving Private Ryan.
43. England, Australia, West Indies (at cricket)? Pass.
44. Chabrol, Godard, Truffaut? Truffaut.
45. Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks? Blonde on Blonde.
46. Trains, planes, automobiles? Trains.
47. North By Northwest, Psycho, Vertigo? North by Northwest.
48. Third, Fourth, Fifth (Beethoven Piano Concerto)? Fifth.
49. Coffee, tea, chocolate? Coffee.
50. Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin? I'm not sure what this one refers to? Another cricket reference? Anyway, I've never been to any. I'll choose Dublin as it's the place I'd like to go to most, though I'd like to visit Edinburgh, too.

Farris Hassan's week off

Sixteen-year-old Floridian goes to Iraq to complete a school project. Unofrtunately, he neglected to tell him mom and dad about his plans.

The next trimester his class was assigned to choose an international topic and write editorials about it, Hassan said. He chose the Iraq war and decided to practice immersion journalism there, too, though he knows his school in no way endorses his travels.

"I thought I'd go the extra mile for that, or rather, a few thousand miles," he told The Associated Press.

Using money his parents had given him at one point, he bought a $900 plane ticket and took off from school a week before Christmas vacation started, skipping classes and leaving the country on Dec. 11.

His goal: Baghdad. Those privy to his plans: two high school buddies.

...

His father, Redha Hassan, a doctor, said his son is an idealist, principled and moral. Aside from the research he wanted to accomplish, he also wrote in an essay saying he wanted to volunteer in Iraq.

He said he wrote half the essay while in the United States, half in Kuwait, and e-mailed it to his teachers Dec. 15 while in the Kuwait City airport.

"There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction," he wrote.

"Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help. Unfortunately altruism is always in short supply. Not enough are willing to set aside the material ambitions of this transient world, put morality first, and risk their lives for the cause of humanity. So I will."

"I want to experience during my Christmas the same hardships ordinary Iraqis experience everyday, so that I may better empathize with their distress," he wrote.

Yet I still can't get those dishes put in the dishwasher

Your Birthdate: May 14

You work well with others. That is, you're good at getting them to do work for you. It's true that you get by on your charm. But so what? You make people happy! You're dynamic, clever, and funny. And people like to have you around. But you're so restless, they better not expect you to stay around for long. Your strength: Your superstar charisma Your weakness: Commitment means nothing to you Your power color: Fuchsia Your power symbol: Diamond Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Preemptive honor killings

Not content with killing his stepdaughter, who had been accused of adultery, Nazir Ahmed decided to go further and kill his three daughters--aged 8, 7 and 4--to prevent them from following in their sister's footsteps.

"I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so they should be eliminated," he said, his hands cuffed, his face unshaven. "We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honor."

Despite Ahmed's contention that Muqadas had committed adultery -- a claim made by her husband -- the rights commission reported that according to local people, Muqadas had fled her husband because he had abused her and forced her to work in a brick-making factory.

Via reader SMP.

Damn hippies

BBC fought hippie influence in the 1970s.

"Talking about the 'hippie' influences at the BBC, Sir Michael Swann said that, while he would not pretend that the BBC was completely clear of problems of this kind, it was a picnic compared with Edinburgh University.

"Nonetheless he thought too many young producers approached every programme they did from the starting point of an attitude about the subject which could be summed up as: 'You are a s***'.

Disraeli the neocon

David Gelernter pays tribute to Disraeli as the founder of modern conservatism.

Marx and Disraeli are perfect countertypes--partly the same, partly opposite (like particle and anti-particle in nuclear physics; when they meet, they destroy each other). Marx and Disraeli are the principal creators of the modern left and right respectively--two 19th-century Jews whose fathers had them baptized, who worked mainly in London, who counted on British power to protect the world from a dangerous Czarist Russia, who died within two years of each other, in 1881 (Disraeli) and '83 (Marx). They were both obsessed with Jews and Judaism, but Marx (the atheist left-winger) hated Jews, Judaism, and religion in general; Disraeli (the devout right-winger) felt differently.

Marx says, "Workers of the world, unite!" Disraeli says, Peoples of Britain, unite! Marx foresees one class united around the world. Disraeli envisions all classes united throughout the nation. Socialists had "internationals," but conservatives never felt any need to blend their national parties into transnational organizations.

Yet Marx-to-Disraeli is not finally a left-to-right spectrum. Marx gave birth not only to the modern left but to totalitarianism. Marx's end of the spectrum is the "shame end," Disraeli's the "pride end." Shame was a powerful force in Marx's life; witness his self-hating anti-Semitism. Twentieth-century totalitarianism was created (not only but in large part) by shame. Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany were born out of humiliating defeat in the First World War: Germany beat Russia (Russian communism followed); the allies beat Germany (Nazism followed). Defeat and shame were not the only forces at work, but we can't understand the 20th century without them. Nor can we understand today's radical Islamic terrorism and totalitarianism (totalitarians being terrorists who have already got what they want) without understanding the central role of defeat and shame.

Modern liberals are nothing like Bolsheviks or Nazis. They are closer to Disraeli's end of the spectrum than Marx's. Yet American liberals are more likely than conservatives to focus on the shameful in American history, conservatives on the things that make them proud.

Disraeli also had a gift for aphorism that rivals Oscar Wilde's. Some great quotes here. One of my favorites: "Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." This motto served him well in his dealings with Queen Victoria.

From the beginning Disraeli set out to woo and flatter her with an infallible instinct for the phrase, the gesture, the compliment, the overture that would most delight her. He was later to tell a colleague who had asked for advice how to handle the Queen, 'First of all, remember she is woman'.

He never forgot this himself. 'The present man will do well', she told her eldest daughter. 'He is very peculiar, thoroughly Jewish looking ... but very clever and sensible ... He is full of poetry, romance and chivalry. When he knelt down to kiss my hand, he said "In loving loyalty and faith."'

All this was in marked contrast to Disraeli's great rival, the Liberal, WE Gladstone, who, she said, addressed her as though she were a public meeting.

More on Disraeli and Gladstone here.

Defying Silent Night

When I started reading this article , I thought there were some sooper seekrit Jew-killing lyrics in Silent Night that I was previously unaware of.

Frankly, I think Judy Maltz is getting her panties in a twist over nothing.

It's the tone of the whole piece that gets me. Her neighbors decorate their houses. Big deal. She knew there weren't many Jews in the town and if she'd really done her homework, she could probably have moved to a more Jewish neighborhood, say near the synagogue she wrote about. No one in the neighborhood came calling with a demand that they string up lights or put a nativity scene on their front lawn.

OK, so she doesn't want her children to sing about Jesus the savior. Fine. Why the outrage over the dreidel song? It was an attempt to be inclusive. If she knows of more, better songs, why not suggest them to the PTO/music teacher/principal? And the religious songs came up during the community sing part of the program. Why not just sit those out? Or leave? Or don't go to the damn program in the first place?

She went to the principal, then the PTO. Fine. Here the principal went too far, overriding the PTO's decision to eliminate overt religious songs. This was wrong, but she paints everything with too broad a brush. The principal may have been an idiot but others were receptive to her wishes and yet her tone suggests that the whole town consists of a bunch of ignorant yokels cum anti-semites.

Check out the comments, too. Seems I'm not the only one who thinks Judy is making a tzimmes out of this non controversy.

What do you think?

'Americans have responsibilities'

"Europeans have attitudes," Mark Steyn on the Arnold/Graz contretemps.

Trouble at Japan's North Korean schools

It took them 40 years, but apparently North Koreans living in Japan are sending fewer of their children to schools funded by Kim Jong Il.

For decades, the schools indoctrinated the children in the glories of North Korea, the evils of Japanese imperialism and the revolutionary exploits of national founder Kim Il Sung, the "Beloved Father Marshal."

But enrollment has fallen to 12,000 from 40,000 in the 1970s, parents are disenchanted, and the dream of one day returning to Chosen, as Korea is historically known, is dying. So the schools are phasing out the Kim-worship and dipping a toe in the Japanese mainstream.

The change highlights deep changes in an enigmatic minority that has stood by North Korea through the Korean War, the Cold War and the entrenchment of one of the world's most rigid and secretive dictatorships.

Via Marc.

Miscellany

What's sexy? Not local news babes.

Latest celebrity trend: Parking in handicapped spots.

End times: Mariah Carey and Elvis.

Laura Bush: She put the pantsuit on the map.

Year in review: Top stories of 2005.

Belligerent women

Jewish edition. Judith Weiss tells the story of Judith, a tale retold on Hannukah.

Dysfunctional, politically immature culture

Election gripes.

An open letter to Susanne Osthoff

Dear Susanne,

Now that you have decided to return to Iraq, I can only hope that your friends from your previous visit decide to look you up again and treat you to some more of their famous hospitality.

You might find, however, a certain reluctance on the part of Angela Merkel and co. to arrange for your passage home this time.

Don't worry about it. As you said, these people are poor and they need the money. And since they don't seldom kill women and children, you'll probably be OK. Besides, think of how much money they could raise from like-minded people when they release your beheading video. If done properly, it could be the biggest thing since they offed Danny Pearl.

Yours,

Tinkerty Tonk

Thanks but no thanks

Frimet Roth, who lost a child in the 2001 bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in Israel, is not impressed with Steven Spielberg's Munich.

Israel doesn't need its morality assessed by condescending Hollywood movie producers, thank you. It is the only democracy in the Middle East and does an exemplary job of retaining its morality in the face of a relentless and immoral enemy. We punish every reported misconduct within our army's ranks. We have checks and balances that ensure the juggling of the security of our people with our compassion.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

UPDATE: See also Indiana Spielberg and his Jewish Problem.

From the mixed up files of George Monbiot

Let me see if I've got this right: On the one hand, the Turks are foolish to censor Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk for "denigrating Turkishness" because everyone in Turkey knows that the charge is code for the Armenian genocide.

Nobody in Britain, however, knows about British atrocities committed against natives over the years in various British colonies. Even though several books have been written about said atrocities. Ergo, the British are worse than the Turks.

Makes perfect sense.

Mass grave found in Karbala

Apparently filled with the bodies of those who took part in the 1991 Shia uprising against Saddam.

Nun bun stolen

Thieves take a cinnamon bun that looks like Mother Theresa from a coffee shop.

Mr Bernstein said the thief "went right for the bun", ignoring cash lying nearby.

"Unfortunately I think it's somebody who wanted to take it to destroy it," he said.

Maybe they'll ask for a ransom?

Women being punished for tsunami

Sharia judges in Indonesia are targeting women.

A year after the disaster which many see as a divine punishment, emboldened Islamic hardliners are doing their best to eradicate sin — and women are their prime targets.

With reconstruction slow, irrational fears of a second tsunami high, and nearly 500,000 still homeless along 500 miles of coastline, the stern message falls on fertile ground. A Sharia police force modelled on Saudi moral enforcers enthusiastically seeks out female wrong doers for public humiliation.

The Wilayatul Hisbah, which loosely translates as “Control Team”, has arrested women, lopped off their hair, and paraded them in tears through the streets while broadcasting their sins over a megaphone.

More than 100 gamblers and drinkers — men and women — have been caned in public and some clerics are calling for thieves’ hands to be amputated.

Meet Lucy Pevensie

Jill Freud was evacuated to CS Lewis' home during World War II and served as the model for Lucy in the Narnia books.

Lewis wrote the first of the Chronicles in 1948. When it was published two years later he sent a copy to June. "I read them then but haven't read them since," she says. "I had no idea I had any involvement with it at all until three years ago when his stepson wrote to me and said: 'I suppose you know you are the prototype for Lucy?' I didn't. I suppose I should read the book again, to see what I am really like." In the Chronicles, the central character of Queen Lucy the Valiant is the youngest and most innocent of the four evacuees and, at first, she is a little afraid of the shaggy-haired professor they are sent to stay with. She was also the most inquisitive, and the kindest, developing a close relationship with Aslan, the lion, who is son of the Emperor over the sea.

Saw and enjoyed the movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on Sunday. The star of the show was Georgie Henley, who plays Lucy. She is a charmer, with a gap-toothed smile and big blue eyes who looks younger than her nine years.

I can't remember how old the Lucy of the book is when we first meet her, but this Lucy seemed about six or seven years old, with a slight speech impediment that made her all the more childish. This fit in very well with the story as told on the screen: Six year olds being much more credulous than older children. For example, when Father Christmas shows up Lucy accepts him at once and clamors for presents while the other children hang back, unsure of what to make of him.

But the movie is not a substitute for the books. As I was watching it, I thought how much better it was to encounter Narnia for the first time between the pages of a book than on the screen. I would advise parents to read the book to their children before seeing the movie.

Merry Chrismukkah!

And a Happy New Year. I'll probably be poking my head in the next day or to. Then again, maybe not. Anyway: Seasons Greetings, Feliz Navidad, Buon Natale, Happy Hanukkah, etc. to all of you.

Miscellany

"Grotesque, bloated example of US hegemony": Santa Claus.

Santa calling: No more sitting on the fat man's lap.

Perfect presents: Dysfunctional Xmas gift tags.

Going postal: Revenge of the hunters.

Merry Christmas: Man plays Santa to military, via It'sAPundit.

Thank you Queer Eye

For the tip about polishing silver with toothpaste. It works great. And my kitchen smells minty fresh, instead of that gross sulfer odor you get from silver polish. Who says television is a vast wasteland?

Saddam's chemical supplier gets 15 years

Dutch court finds that Frans van Anraat sold chemicals to Iraq that were used in the 1989 genocide against the Kurds.

"From different sources it can be deduced that the suspect was aware of the destination and the final purpose for the base materials supplied by him," the prosecutor's office told the AFP news agency.

Among the chemicals van Anraat was accused of supplying was thiodiglycol, a chemical solvent used in the textile industry and in the manufacture of mustard gas.

He was found guilty of arranging 36 shipments - a total of 538 tons - from the US via the Belgian port of Antwerp, through Aqaba in Jordan to Iraq.

WMD? What WMD?

Clamoring for Christmas trees--in Israel

More and more Jews are buying them, but even some of the sellers have misgivings.

Moshe Zada, a native Israeli Jew of Persian decent, owns a small store near the old Tel Aviv central bus station that sells Christmas trees and Christmas paraphernalia.

"All of my customers are Russians or foreign workers," Zada insists, sounding anxious. "No Jews would want to have a tree in their home. Look for yourself," he says, pointing to a thin, blond man with a tattoo of an eagle on his forearm.

Then Lilach Cohen, 31, of Ramat Gan, interrupts to ask the price of a tree.

Cohen says she is buying the tree for a Christmas party she is having at her house.

"It is just another opportunity to party," says Cohen, who senses the need to address the religious issue, and adds, "I am secure enough with my faith in God to do something like this. The tree has no religious meaning for me whatsoever."

Cohen said she got the idea for the tree from TV.

Zada seems uncomfortable with Cohen's choice, but defends his sale.

"Listen, a guy has to make a living," he says. "What can I do?"

EVEN IN the most secular Israeli circles many consider a Christmas tree anathema. MK Ronnie Brizon of the staunchly secular Shinui Party says the phenomenon of Israelis celebrating with a Christmas tree is "weird and pathetic."

One more strike...

I wish I had thought of grabbing my camera before leaving the house for the past 2 days - and giving you the visuals of New York Transit Strike thru the eyes of an average commuter.

I regret not having this journalistic/blogging reflex of carrying the camera around, "just in case things happen" - and being way too sleepy getting up at 5:15 in the morning to think beyond immediate mundane tasks.

I said "an average" since there were tens of thousands of people affected much more than I was, physically (some had to walk up to 12 miles, in 22F weather) and financially (I saw a resident of East New York on TV yesterday saying she spends $26 to $30 each day one way on van service in order to get to work in Manhattan; no other means of transportation available from her neighborhood.)

My own daily balance: walk 18.5 blocks to a ferry terminal in Brooklyn,$6 for water taxi to downtown Manhattan (boy, this brought memories of the Fall '01, with commuting on ferries and Tower of Light on horizon), walk across town to a PATH train at the World Trade Center station (open construction pit; another reminder), $1.50 for a ride to 30th Street, walk 6.5 blocks to my office building in midtown; same in reverse for the evening: $15.00 and 5 hrs commute instead of normal 1.75 hr and $2.80 (I have a monthly Metrocard). Not counting the frustration of waiting for the boat in 3-block-long line, lost productivity due to the lack of sleep and added cost of takeout breakfast. (Normally I brew my own coffee in the morning). I was luckier than most people in having to endure it only for 2 days, too, so my total - mere $30 and 10 hrs of commuting.

For some reason, the loss figures I heard on TV (estimated $400 million first day, etc.) referred only to losses to the city, not to individuals or businesses--which nobody offered to compensate. So I was pleasantly surprised to learn at least one business (and the one I know personally, having been a regular patron) is fighting back.

As to the race card, discussed here before: I heard myself, on NY One News's segment yesterday, one of the strikers saying "When this Union was composed of Irish and Italians they were given pensions and contracts all right" - not continuing his sentence as to what object of comparison he's hinting to, but it was clear since he and his mates were black. The guy next to him added: "This is New Orleans all over again: we(?-TE) are left to fend for ourselves."

I hope the outragiousness of this statement is obvious to the readers of this blog and doesn't require my commentary.

In fact, I'll withold my commentary altogether, since my own thoughts were expressed brilliantly in these two places I'll send you to, even the difference in tone reflects my own reactions.

Dryer lint

In a jar.

It's always about race

"The potentially volatile issue," says the NYT, has bubbled to the surface in the issue of the transit strike. The evidence? Commentors to the Transit Union's blog (comments have since been disabled and deleted) compared union members to monkeys and referred to them as "you people."

I don't know about the monkey comments, but couldn't "you people"--Ross Perot notwithstanding--possibly refer to all the striking workers be they black, yellow or white?

Not a chance. It's a racial slur because the transit workers say it's a racial slur. As was Mayor Bloomberg's remark that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City." Enter Al Sharpton and the Rev. Herbert Daughtry and it's official: Everyone who disagrees with the strike is a racist.

I like the idea of Saddam's head on a pike

Others may differ. Victorino Matus ponders the fate of Saddam's corpse and gives a history of how other dictators were treated after death--from the assault on Mussolini's corpse to the Ceausescus ignominious end in unmarked graves.

College doesn't guarantee proficiency in literacy

Results from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy show that only 25 percent of college grads were deemed "proficient," the highest of three scores that also included "basic" and "intermediate."

Doug Hesse, a professor of English and head of the honors program at Illinois State University, who is active in the National Council of Teachers of English, has some theories. “This is exactly emblematic of what’s going on in our culture now,” he said, in that students (like most of us) are barraged with “flashes and bits of material” — “here’s a sound bit, here’s a sound bite, here’s a factoid” — and “not really much asked to use the information or analyze it in some way.”

Hesse also cited “sobering” data about the amount of time students spend on their studies. One study at Illinois State found that honors students were assigned an average of fewer than 50 pages of reading a week, and that two of five students acknowledged completing less than half of that work. “Students seem to spend a lot of time on Facebook, and when you think about the literate practices involved in Facebook, that’s probably not contributing a lot to the scores on something like this literacy test,” he said.

Here are some questions from the 1992 test.

NIMBY: FEMA trailers blocked in New Orleans

City council members don't want trailer parks in their backyard. There have been protests in various New Orleans neighborhoods--and in other Louisiana parishes--against temporary trailer parks for residents whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Annunciation Square is a nearly four-acre city park built in the early 19th century as the centerpiece of a prosperous suburban development in the new English sector of the city. The green space sat high and dry during and after Katrina and recently received a facelift costing more than $1 million. Neighbors were upset Wednesday as heavy machinery spread tons of limestone over the grass and trees, and plants were plucked in preparation for the arrival of trailers by Saturday.

"I know people need help, but why take our little park?" said Julia R. Callahan, 84, who was born in the shotgun double on Orange Street facing the park, where she still lives. "I've always said I lived in front of a lawn I didn't have to take care of. And I've loved watching the kids from St. Michael's school play there."

Doesn't it give you a warm and tingly feeling this holiday season to see so many New Orleans residents reaching out to help one another?

Added Christmas MSM media bias bonus: MSNBC blames FEMA for the delay.

Miscellany

"Belly buttons are nice." Letter to the Intelligent Designer.

Middle East milestone: Sheffield University is on board.

"In the Middle Ages, everyone was middle aged." History, via Norm.

Poor Barbie: It's not easy being plastic.

Loose lips sink ships: Fun with propaganda.

Munich: It's black and white, really

Kate Wright looks at Steven Spielberg's Munich and rather unnecessarily complicates the issue.

As Wright points out, Spielberg's "prayer of peace" continues the "cycle of violence" narrative by portraying the Israeli response to the slaughter at the 1972 Olympics as a revenge tragedy. In fact, the assault at Munich was an unprovoked act of war. And no nation can survive if it allows itself to be attacked without responding. September 11 was such an act as was Pearl Harbor; the only difference being that at Munich and on September 11 the attack did not come from a sovereign nation.

The situation at Munich was complicated by the fact that it took place on foreign soil. Munich was a debacle from beginning to end: The West German government refused to allow the Israelis to send in their own hostage rescue team. Then the German rescue team, fearful for their lives, refused to conduct the rescue. Afterwards, the West German authorities allowed the Palestinians they managed to capture to go free.

Having been let down by the German government, the Israelis were forced to respond. And respond they did: Going after the perpetrators one by one.

Spielberg, seeking to add much-vaunted nuance to the story, has been quoted as saying that he wanted to add a human dimension to the story:

By experiencing how the implacable resolve of these men to succeed in their mission slowly gave way to troubling doubts about what they were doing, I think we can learn something important about the tragic standoff we find ourselves in today

In fact, the agents assigned to perform the task have never expressed doubts about their mission, in spite of mistakes made during the course of that mission.

In times of war men are called up to do horrible things, and leaders are faced with making unpleasant decisions. That's the price of survival.

Saving the world from silver dragees

You know those little silver balls that decorate cookies? It seems that they're made from silver. And silver stays in the body forever. So if you eat enough of them you're liable to turn blue. Of course, you'd have to commence eating them nonstop today and, possibly, by next Christmas you might notice a bluish hue.

Thanks to this food fascist, however, that's unlikely to happen. He's started a crusade to keep the confectionary decorations off the store shelves by suing the pants off anyone who sells them. Aren't you glad Mark Pollack is around to protect you from such dangers?

Thanks to Virginia Postrel.

Today in history: The bombing of Pan Am flight 103

Seventeen years ago today, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, as a result of a bomb. The explosion killed 270 people, 189 of whom were Americans.

Some links:

"Remembering Lockerbie" by the Syracuse University Law School has links to cases, laws and treaties related to the bombing. Thirty-five Syracuse students were killed in the blast.

Homepage of the Victims of Flight 103.

Wikipedia entry.

About.com entry on the attack.

"The Lockerbie Trial" from BBC News.

Vinnie the chin is no more

Mobster died in prison hospital.

And, until his 1997 conviction, Gigante had served only a five-year heroin rap in 1959. He also turned his claim of mental illness - first used to escape trial in a 1970 police-bribery case - into a full-time strategy, behaving oddly in public, checking into psychiatric treatment clinics whenever the FBI turned up the heat.

Once, agents serving a subpoena found Gigante standing naked in the shower, holding an umbrella. Another time, upon spotting agents watching him, he fell to the sidewalk and prayed.

But the good times ended in July 1997 when he was convicted of racketeering.

More here.

UPDATE: In other dead news, columnist Jack Anderson is dead. Described by J. Edgar Hoover as "lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures," Anderson was the author of the nation's longest running political column.

Mr. Anderson's decidedly roguish techniques included eavesdropping, spiriting off classified documents, rifling through garbage (Mr. Hoover's, in particular) and sometimes blatant threats - methods he defended as justified in his lifetime campaign to keep government honest. His printing of verbatim transcripts of the secret Watergate grand jury thwarted Mr. Nixon's efforts to stonewall the scandal by hiding behind grand jury secrecy.

Not only was Mr. Anderson on Nixon's notorious list, but G. Gordon Liddy, a Watergate burglar, plotted his murder.

Wired scooped NYT on spy story

Four years ago, says Sweetness and Light.

Islamism: A necessary detour on the road to Middle East democracy

That's what Nouri bin Ziri thinks.

There don't have to wars. There can be corrupt regimes, like in Iran. It doesn't really matter, which. But the fact is that Islamists governments and groups quickly discredit themselves when given the opportunity. They have not once, when put in a position of authority and responsibility or when they have been pit against an "enemy," to be effective in any endevor outside of making the lives of their "constituencies" miserable.

Did Bush break the law?

Perhaps. But the person or persons who leaked the news to the NYT almost certainly did.

These "concerned" officials have acted extremely unprofessionally: they clearly violated their secrecy oath and the provisions of the 1980 Classified Information Procedures Act by providing classified information to the media. While it may come as a shock to some, the media is NOT entitled to classified information under any circumstances.

Wretchard looks back to a time when it was unthinkable to leak such intelligence.

Once upon a time signals intelligence was considered so important that considerable efforts were taken to prevent its compromise. Captain John Philip Cromwell, who was privy to the secrets of signals intelligence, elected to go down with the USS Sculpin rather than risk capture by the Japanese and reveal his knowledge under torture. Cromwell agonized over a problem the NYT editorial board might have found easier to resolve.

James Joyner suspects that there's more to the story than wiretapping.

The facts that AG Gonzales has dubbed this "probably the most classified program that exists in the United States government" and that the NYT held onto the story for over a year and then removed certain "technical details" also speaks to the likelihood that this program involved some cutting edge technologies that the government would just as soon not have our enemies know about.

My true nature

How evil are you?

Via Mind of Mog.

Four by eight

Meme courtesy of Terry Teachout, because--face it--I don't seem to have much to say today.

Four jobs you've had in your life: Cashier, funnel cake purveyor, proofreader, editor.

Four movies you could watch over and over: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, The 39 Steps, Singing in the Rain, The Women.

Four places you've lived: Florida, New Jersey, Washington, DC and NYC.

Four TV shows you love to watch: 24, The OC, Buffy, House.

Four places you've been on vacation: Key West, London, San Francisco, Mohonk Mountain House.

Four websites you visit daily: Arts & Letters Daily, the bleat, Instapundit, Manolo.

Four of your favorite foods: anything chocolate, pizza, bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon, freshly baked bread.

Four places you'd rather be: Paris between the wars, between the covers of a PG Wodehouse novel, someplace warm, in bed with a good book.

Green eggs and ham

Certified halal. Kosher, too--and vegetarian.

And you thought we outlawed slavery

Daniel Pipes reports on the Saudis who import slaves to the US.

Last week, however, the FBI accused the couple of enslaving an Indonesian woman who is in her early 20s. For four years, reads the indictment, they created "a climate of fear and intimidation through rape and other means." The slave woman cooked, cleaned, took care of the children, and performed other tasks for little or no pay, fearing that if she did not obey, "she would suffer serious harm."

The two Saudis face charges of forced labor, aggravated sexual abuse, document servitude, and harboring an alien. If found guilty, they could spend the rest of their lives in prison. The government also wants to seize the couple's Al-Basheer bank account to pay their former slave $92,700 in back wages.

It's shocking, especially for a graduate student and owner of a religious bookstore - but not particularly rare.

Miscellany

Painter of light? The Thomas Kinkade in your mind.

Search tips: Be specific.

From Dewey to Casanova to Larkin: Librarian trading cards.

Madam, I'm Adam: Palindromes.

Celebrities: Reading poetry.

Tit for tat

So's your old man.

Only Belarussians need apply

Lukashenko outlaws the use of foreign models.

Companies with well-planned promotional campaigns also had to scramble to comply, often by significantly revising their ads. "We have had difficulties in getting models for shoots," said Raman Lapchuk, an account manager for Hepta Group Publicis, an advertising agency here that represents such international companies as Renault, L'Oréal and Hewlett-Packard.

In some cases, he said, "We just used images without humans."

Mr. Lukashenko's decrees are often the subject of ridicule - openly abroad, less so here - but the campaign against foreign models is an example of how he maintains power, appealing to populist or nationalist sentiments even as he exerts greater control over economic, social and political life here.

Ridiculous. Yet not so funny.

But is it art?

Artist creates sculptures from Oxo cubes.

Among his creations are wine bottles, Christmas pudding, and a teddy bear.

Mr Birdsall shaped the small square cubes, which come in three shades of brown depending on the flavour, into a pudding and topped it with green outer packaging in the shape of holly leaves.

Hundreds of the shiny silver wrapped cubes have been crafted into the shape of a champagne bottle, while the square cardboard boxes the cubes are packaged in were used to build a robot.

RINO sightings

Read the latest at Kesher Talk. This week's entries cover topics ranging from torture to movies.

One dead archduke and the entire empire will fall apart

The blogosphere's foremost cartographer provides an atlas of the troubled Empire of Blog. Can the rival kingdoms of Kostrovia and Wingery hold together? Or will tensions erupt between Buddha and Pissed and tear Wingery apart? If so, expect shifting alliances in Instyvania, where historic ties to Galicya may not outlast present-day political expediency.

A matter of life and death

Gil Hoffman on Ariel Sharon's stroke and the implications it has for the upcoming Israeli election.

Whenever anyone dared suggest that the Likud and Labor leadership races were irrelevant, someone always apologetically whispered that one event could change the election immediately.

Already on Monday, the results of Sharon's stroke will be felt in 700 polling stations nationwide, where the Likud's 128,347 members will be electing a new leader. Suddenly the race has renewed meaning.

Likud members who might have thought they were electing an opposition leader or a transportation minister in a Kadima-led government will realize that they could be electing the next prime minister. Turnout in the race, which was expected to hover around an embarrassingly low 50 percent, is liable to skyrocket.

Stick to books and CDs

Amanda Fortini makes the case against giving clothes as gifts. One of the many pitfalls:

A gift of clothing comments not only on what a person likes, or what the giver thinks they'll like, but also on what he or she looks like. To give clothing is to make known, quite concretely, your perception of someone else's size. If the giftee is a woman, proceed with caution. Buying clothing blindly is like purchasing furniture for a house without first taking measurements. In fact, the analogy may be too apt—select a garment on the large side, and a house is what the receiver may feel she resembles. But purchasing on the lower end of the spectrum also has its pitfalls: Does a too-tiny garment mean you think she's overweight?

I must say that I'm of two minds about this proscription. One of my best gifts ever was a beautiful silk robe from a former boyfriend in a flatteringly small size that fit like a glove. I've received plenty of not-so-good clothing items as well: A matronly 2-piece dress in electric blue from another boyfriend, itchy sweaters, joke t-shirts, etc. Overall, though, I can think of worse gifts.

Her parents must be so proud

Annie wonders about the reaction back home when a 14-year-old appears as a cover girl for anorexia on Newsweek.

Does a neighbor call and say “I was at the dentist’s office this morning, and I happened to see Amy on the cover of Newsweek! How cool! Amy must be thrilled.”

A year from now, when guests come over, will this week’s issue of the magazine just happen to display itself on the kitchen counter? And when someone reaches over to it with interest, will Mrs. Nelson grab it and say, “oh, where did you find that old rag! What? Oh! Yes, it is actually Amy there on the cover. A real rough time we all went through, that was.” A ridiculous scenario, granted, but then, if you don’t want people to see your anorexic daughter and her anorexic name, why do let her pose on the cover of a national magazine for a camera that zooms in on her unhappy, underfed pout?

I remember watching a news show (60 Minutes? I can't recall.) about anorexia that featured the daughter of a former colleague of my dad's. It was strange seeing little Stacy G., whom I'd known in first grade, as the poster child for an eating disorder.

Anorexia has become a hardy perennial of the newsmagazine business, in print and on TV, appearing sometime after obesity season but before spousal abuse in the cycle. And for a time during that particular season Stacey G. was the it girl, quoted in magazines and featured on TV. And then she disappeared, replaced--eventually--by Amy Nelson.

I don't know how the Nelsons, or their neighbors, feel about Amy's current fame. But I can tell you this: Whenever I read a story about anorexia I think about Stacey G.

'We can win and we are winning'

Bush's address to the nation:

Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts. For every scene of destruction in Iraq, there are more scenes of rebuilding and hope. For every life lost, there are countless more lives reclaimed. And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them. My fellow citizens: Not only can we win the war in Iraq — we are winning the war in Iraq.

It is also important for every American to understand the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before our work is done. We would abandon our Iraqi friends — and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops — by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip. We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us — and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before. To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor ... and I will not allow it.

Some random reactions:

Mort Kondracke on Fox: "This is the fireside chat that the President should have given a long time ago."

Bill Kristol: Extremely responsible and sober speech.

K-Lo:

He went over all the noise and talked honestly and directly to Americans when they're home to be listening and don't have to rely on the snips and quips of the MSM to deliver his message. What he said tonight and how he said it was right-on.

How hard is it to put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher?

I'm not talking about running the dishwasher. Or, God forbid, putting the clean dishes in the dishwasher away. Is putting dishes in the dishwasher somehow more difficult than putting them in the sink? Is it the bending down that makes putting dishes in the dishwasher the more onerous task? I really want to know.

'Ugly people of the world unite'

Club for those who have are unhappy with at least one aspect of their looks.

Harald Gasper, a creative director in an advertising agency with a jowly face and a big nose, established the club with his wife Regina, a tall journalist with big feet.

...

Among the club's role models are Angela Merkel, the new German chancellor, whose own lack of regard for her looks has attracted much criticism, the Duchess of Cornwall and the singer, Janis Joplin.

Via Eric, who adds:

'm not convinced that ugliness should be defined purely by the physical attributes of person. What about ugly opinions and views? Don't people with ugly views need a club, or are they already proficient at establishing organisations?

Let the bloodletting begin

Rick Moran looks forward to the new season of 24 (as do I) and makes some predictions. He'll also keep track of the corpses.

Miscellany

Bras: Young Hollywood needs your support.

Cats: In sinks, via Norm.

Christmas wishes: What he'd like to hear.

Pronunciation: Coupons.

Racism: It's everywhere.

Face transplants: Scary sci-fi nightmare?

Or just a lot of hype? I tend to think that if they can help someone whose face is disfigured, then that's a good thing. I can't imagine undergoing one just to get a new look, however. It seems a little drastic. And what if Angelina Jolie's face doesn't look right over your bones?It would be a whole lot easier just to have the details you don't like altered. Of course, the existence of Jocelyn Wildenstein tends to undercut my argument.

More here.

My chance at 15 minutes of fame?

An email:

Hi. I'm a casting director at ABC News, currently casting for Season 2 of "HOOKING UP," last summer's hit documentary series about online romance, dating, sex and relationships set in and around New York City. We are looking for outgoing and articulate women and men, straight or gay, ages 20-40, living in or near (and primarily dating in) Manhattan, who are currently internet dating… or extremely eager to try it.

If you are interested, please complete the attached application in detail and e-mail it back to me as soon as possible, with a PHOTO… and then we can chat!

...

Best,

Claresa Mandola

Not quite sure if this is real or not. But Claresa Mandola apparently does (did?) work for ABC. Anyway, among other things, I don't live in Manhattan. I did write about Hooking Up, though. Here and here.

Here's the application:

“HOOKING UP”
Application

Name

Age

Telephone Numbers (cell/home/work)

Address

Email

Female or Male?

Straight or Gay?

How would your best friend describe your personality?

What is your occupation?

If you are not currently internet dating, please explain in detail what is making you consider it now and on-camera? What would you hope to get out of doing this show?

What online dating service(s) are you using (e.g. match, lavalife, craigslist), and how often do you date as a result?

How many online dates have you had?

How many ended up in a relationship, sex or even a second date?

What is your primary goal in dating online… find a spouse, sex, serious relationship, just dating, etc? How’s that working for you so far?

Share with us an interesting or telling excerpt from your online dating profile.

Describe your funniest or most bizarre date.

Describe your most awkward dating moment.

Please list your hobbies/interests, what you do for fun and what you enjoy doing on dates.

Why should our cameras follow your dating adventures for 2-3 months?

Are you prudish, promiscuous, platonic or somewhere in between? Be specific.

Life imitates TV

There's an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show im which everything goes wrong for Mary, culminating in a disastrous trip to the Annual Teddy Awards with Ted Baxter as her date.

It begins when the usually immaculate Mary develops a strange bump in her hair that won't go away and goes downhill from there: She gets a bad cold, her date for the Teddies cancels, the drycleaner ruins her dress, etc. None of it is earth shattering, just a series of low grade annoyances that build and build until, if I recall, Mary breaks down and cries at the awards.

I seem to be going through one of those spells myself. No cold or mysterious hair bump, but my face is extremely chapped thanks to the hideously cold weather of the past few days. My garbage disposal stopped working the other day and the maintenance guy came by on Monday and left a note to the effect that it's broken. No word on whether/if/when it will be replaced. A half a bagel has been sitting in there since the weekend waiting to be ground down. My car is acting kind of funny, which wouldn't concern me so much except that my son's car is now in the shop until Monday so I'm performing chauffeur duty now. I saved myself from a fall on the ice the other day by performing some kind of weird contortion during which I could feel my right thigh bone sort of twist in the hip socket. My right buttock has been hurting me ever since. Then this morning I dislodged half a filling when I was brushing my teeth.

So you see: Nothing major, thank goodness. But it collectively stinks.

Zarqawi captured and released

Not good.

Maj Gen Hussein Kamal told reporters that Zarqawi was detained in the central Iraqi town of Falluja, but was released when nobody recognised him.

...

Gen Kamal said Iraqi police had detained Zarqawi for about three or four hours before releasing him.

"Iraqi police forces, who were in Falluja then, did not have sophisticated equipment to take pictures of him or take his fingerprints," he told the Associated Press.

Uptown moms and downtown moms

Eventually they'll both settle down in the suburbs, says Kay Hymowitz.

Readers might have noticed a front-page article in the New York Times a week or so ago, reporting that Manhattan was in the midst of a baby boom. In the past five years, it seems, the number of borough children under age 5, including many in tony neighborhoods, has risen about 26%. This was taken as a sign, perhaps, that women can have it all: work, children and a hip urban lifestyle.

...

For all the fanfare, these rumors of a baby boomlet have a sort of déjà vu quality. Several decades ago baby boomers like me, determined to spare our children the Eisenhower suburbs we were certain had warped our own childhoods, used to enjoy a bit of frisson when we read accounts of "yuppies," with their "renovated brownstones" in the "restored historic districts" of various cities. We were so important that Newsweek even named the year 1984 after us: "The Year of the Yuppie."

As it happens, many yuppies packed up their pinstripe suits and skulked back to New Jersey once their families outgrew their four-room apartments or, in a considerable number of unlucky cases, after their first child was mugged on his way home from school. Even now that many big cities enjoy a dramatically lower crime rate, history is likely to repeat itself.

Designer logos

They're everywhere.

Nationally, there are even more colorful variations. Beverly Hills aesthetician Nance Mitchell, who counts Christina Aguilera among her clients, sculpts topiary-style patterns into pubic bush, including Louis Vuitton initials and the Mercedes-Benz symbol, which will run you up to $1,200. For a mere $105, a Madison Avenue spa offers a number called "Completely Bare with a Flair," in which Swarovski rhinestones are glued to a freshly waxed mound.

Via David Skinner.

What he said

Odysseus:

This is one of the most audacious programs in history. Imagine if, in 2001, standing over the ashes of the World Trade Center, George W. Bush had announced that within four years, we would have deposed Saddam, stood up a new Iraqi army, held three elections and created a stable, permanent and democratic government there, as well as doing the same in Afghanistan, he'd have been dragged off in a straightjacket. But in fact, that's what he did. We held the first election within two years of deposing Saddam, on schedule, despite the worst efforts of men who consider democracy an affront to Allah. The Iraqis had a year to draft their constitution and made the deadline. The naysayers demanded that we postpone the referendum, predicting failure. It passed, on time. Remember that the next time someone tells you that there's no timeline.

One of Iraq's politicians announced that today, Iraq will be reborn. Every soldier, marine, airman and sailor who had a hand in that should take pride at having been in the delivery room.

Iraqi election roundup

"Undeterred by Violence, Iraqis Head to Polls to Choose New Government":

"Even though there were many explosions last night, and even if there are more now or on my way to the polling center, I will come and vote," declared Mizhar Abud Salman, heading to a schoolhouse polling center in Saddam Hussein's home region of Tikrit.

"Turnout high for most peaceful vote so far":

The relative calm surrounding today's poll contrasted sharply with the January 30 vote for an interim assembly, during which about 40 people were killed.

In another important contrast with earlier votes, Sunni Arabs today appeared determined to have more say in government, ending their boycott of the electoral process.

"Why they vote":

Iraqis are not about to forget where they have been or to yield easily to those who would drag them back there. Threaten to kill them if they vote, and 8 million turn out on Election Day. Blow up a dozen men applying to join the police force, and the survivors are back in line the next morning.

Yes, there is violent death in Iraq today, as there was in the old Iraq. The difference is that then Iraqis were subjects, defenseless against one of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet. Now they are citizens of a nation that is transforming itself into the freest and most progressive democracy the Arab world has ever known. Then, they lived with daily terror and misery, and faced a future that promised only more of the same. Now, Hussein and his lieutenants are on trial, and the future Iraqis face is one they know will be of their own making.

BBC: Iraqi voters talk about their vote.

Zarawi threatens vote, but Iraqis are defiant:

In Tahrir Square posters were hung depicting Zarqawi dressed as a blood-red monster with the motto: "He wants to destroy elections, democracy, progress." There are growing signs that Sunni Arabs, who have led the insurgency for more than two years, will vote in unprecedented numbers.

Sunni turnout strong:

Today, Sunnis appeared to be voting in large numbers, even in hotbeds of insurgent activity such as Ramadi and Haqlaniya. Major insurgent groups had promised not to attack polling stations, and some polling centres in Ramadi were guarded by masked gunmen.

"I came here and voted in order to prove that Sunnis are not a minority in this country," lawyer Yahya Abdul-Jalil said in Ramadi. "We lost a lot during the last elections, but this time we will take our normal and key role in leading this country."

"Election Stakes Are Highest Yet in Iraq"

Leaders predict a secular-Islamist split:

Between them are profound differences over the direction of the country and the nature of the Iraqi state, not just over how heavily it should influenced by Islam but also over the powers of the central government and the autonomy granted to local regions. Implicit in those questions, for many Iraqis, is whether the country can survive at all.

Put on a few pounds? Pay up

Celebrity prenups:

Prenups are the norm for most stars — even regular folks should have one, if you listen to Kanye West — and these documents can dictate far more than who gets what. Attorneys say some recent celebrity prenups include:

• Limiting the wife's weight to 120 pounds or she must relinquish $100,000 of her separate property.

• Allowing a spouse to perform random drug tests, with financial penalties for positive results.

• Requiring a husband to pay $10,000 each time he is rude to his wife's parents.

Via Kausfiles.

Condi put in charge of Iraq reconstruction

State will take over job originally given to the DoD in 2003.

State Department experts who had planned for the post-war period were pushed aside by Pentagon officials, including defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who strongly resisted the notion of nation-building.

A former senior official involved in what he called the “chaos” of post-war reconstruction efforts in Iraq said yesterday’s announcement also affirmed the growing power and influence of Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state.

Pejman Yousefzadeh:

I am far less interested in this than I am in whether a good working relationship between the State Department and the Pentagon will eventuate. It will be key to the reconstruction effort, and if only for reasons of bureaucratic survival (remember that Donald Rumsfeld is a Jedi Master when it comes to interagency warfare), it will be in Condi Rice's interests to foster such a relationship.

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home

It's in the teens here. So why is it everyday I find a new ladybug flying around? Is the earth being taken over by a race of mutant ladybugs? Please advise.

'It smells like vagina in here'

Hilariously bad sexual harassment video found via this discussion of sexual harassment training at Protein Wisdom.

I once worked in an office where a woman who was fired claimed she was sexually harassed. She and a coworker had a sort of third-rate Sam and Diane act going on, not particularly sexual but they were always quipping back and forth. They were the office loudmouths, basically ignored by one and all. Anyway, she filed a claim and we all had to go down to the corporate offices to be deposed. I have no idea what came of it, but if someone were to have asked me beforehand which of my coworkers would be the most likely to file a claim, she would have been chosen without hesitation. When she wasn't trading barbs with her male counterpart, she was overemoting about something, which is why she was eventually fired.

Obligatory disclaimer: Yes, sexual harassment occurs and, yes, it's unpleasant. Between high school and college I worked in an office as a typist/file clerk. One day my boss actually started rubbing up against me. Somehow, my 17-year-old self was smart enough to get up, grab my purse and leave. I spent the entire night wondering what I should do and eventually decided to go to work. When I got there, my boss was practically in hysterics, pleading forgiveness and begging me not to say anything to anyone. So I forgave and forgot. End of story.

For the lighter side of sexual harassment, I recommend reading Stanley Bing's You Look Nice Today. Very funny. And it perfectly captures life in a big corporation.

Tookie and Jesus

They were both celebrities who got executed.

Miscellany

12 Days of Christmas: Last-minute gifts for liberals.

Civilians and citizens: An illustrated example.

Why stop with Tookie? Children's authors eligible for execution.

Martinis: An originalist perspective.

Greek myth: Starring Barbie, via Katiedid.

Another movie I won't be seeing

Syriana. It was apparent to me what this movie was like when I saw the commercial, which had some character going on about a "war for oil." A war for oil? That's so 1991.

Also, and this is crucial: Whatever gave George Clooney the idea that anyone wanted to see him fat? When you're a movie star who becomes a movie star because you look like a movie star, it behooves you to give the people what they want.

More shenanigans from Iran

Police seize truckload of forged ballots headed from Iran to Iraq. Funny thing is, I read this soon after I listened to this NPR story in which Michael Rubin talks about his meetings with Sunni leaders to learn about what they think of the election. They're afraid the US is secretly aligned with Iran!

UPDATE: The truck story is false, according to Reuters.

'Fast-tracking democracy also means fast-tracking political apathy'

Personally, I think that when and if Iraqis become as apathetic as Americans about elections, we'll know that democracy has truly arrived. In the meantime, they have 327 parties to learn about before tomorrow's vote. That does sound exhausting.

Whoever you talk to says they think voter turnout will be just as good as last time. I do believe that for many Iraqis the fact that this time we are voting for people who are staying in government for four years has sunk in. We've been through three trial runs and this time it's for real. Keep your fingers crossed for us, will you?

Absolutely.

Heterosexuals attracted to the opposite sex

Mickey Kaus on Brokeback Mountain:

My wild hypothesis is that more people will go see a movie if it features an actor or actress they find attractive! If heterosexual men in heartland America don't flock to see Brokeback Mountain it's not because they're bigoted. It's because they're heterosexual. "Heterosexuals Attracted to Members of the Opposite Sex"--for those cultural critics wondering what a commerical disappointment for this much-heralded movie will Tell Us About America Today, there's your headline. ...

P.P.S.: Universal love story or epater les bourgeois? You make the call! If you want to be convinced that Brokeback Mountain is a gay movie, read David Leavitt's annoying article arguing that it's not a gay movie. Especially this sentence:

His Ennis Del Mar is as monolithic as the mountainscape in which—with the same swiftness, brutality, and precision that he exhibits in shooting an elk—he fucks Jack Twist for the first time.

You wouldn't write that last bit in a classy publication like Slate if it were Jane Twist! Leavitt is taking both sexual pleasure from his sentence and pleasure in shocking his readers. If that's the pleasure he takes from the film, it's a gay film! [Don't you mean it's a "paean to masculinity"--ed Yes. Right.Tom of Finland's work is another paean to masculinity.]

In any case, Hollywood has already signalled what "America Today" should think about this movie: It was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture a week before its general release. I probably won't be seeing it. I hate westerns. And my interest in sheep begins and ends with sweaters.

UPDATE: Gays flock to "gay Gone with the Wind," but it's not really a gay movie, says Jose Antonio Vargas.

Plans underway for first Muslim sorority

Gamma Gamma Chi hopes to open its first chapter at the University of Kentucky.

[M]any young Muslim women are intrigued by the concept. Since Gamma Gamma Chi was founded seven months ago, Muslim students from 14 states -- and from Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates -- have e-mailed the sorority's national headquarters in Alexandria, Va. The biggest response came from the University of Kentucky, Lexington, a city with a Muslim population of nearly 2,500.

The idea for Gamma Gamma Chi came from Imani Abdul-Haqq, a 34-year-old business administration major at Guilford College in Greensboro.

She hopes to establish chapters in every region of the United States by 2015.

A black woman who converted to Islam in 2000, Abdul-Haqq considered whether to join an established black sorority, but worried she would have to compromise her Muslim beliefs. Even the term for the nine predominantly black fraternities and sororities -- the Divine Nine -- makes her uncomfortable. Only Allah, she says, is divine.

''As a Muslim who dresses modestly and does not drink, I wouldn't want to set myself apart from the people I was pledging with," she said. ''I want to feel the unity."

I am Einstein

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Via Mind of Mog.

New Year's resolutions

Do you have any?

I tend not to make New Year's resolutions; I figure that if I should do something, I should do it regardless of the time of year. For most of 2005, I've vowed to start a regular exercise program. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe 2006 is the year. I am considering joining a gym. My apartment complex has a so-called fitness center, but it's pretty lame. So maybe I'll do that.

Then again ...

Slow Pearl Harbors

Reacting to a sudden attack, like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, is one thing, but what about the slow Pearl Harbors? James Johnson and Robert Zarate look at Roberta Wohlstetter's concept of disasters in the making, first unveiled in a 1979 essay in the Washington Quarterly, "The Pleasures of Self-Deception."

Wohlstetter saw a slow Pearl Harbor in Britain's reluctance during the 1930s to recognize that Nazi Germany was using arms control agreements not to avoid what Hitler had called "an unlimited arms race," but to slow Britain's rearmament while using ambiguous violations of these agreements to accelerate its own.

Today, the problems posed by nuclear proliferation may be best understood as potential slow Pearl Harbors. Despite prolonged negotiations in the 1990s--in particular, the establishment of the Agreed Framework in 1994--North Korea successfully used a series of ambiguous violations to test American, Western, and international resolve while accumulating plutonium for several nuclear explosives. Lingering uncertainty about North Korea's intentions dissipated in 2003, when Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and declared its possession of nuclear weapons.

In 2003, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, became aware of undeclared Iranian nuclear activities. But today Iran--claiming an intention to comply with IAEA safeguards while nevertheless reasserting its "inalienable right" to practically any nuclear activity short of inserting fissile material into a nuclear explosive's core--is repeatedly testing American, Western, and international resolve.

One could also argue that Saddam Hussein was a slow Pearl Harbor in the making.

Saddam invaded Kuwait, remember? And Bush 41 assembled a by-the-UN-book coalition and expelled him. And in the intervening 13 years Saddam flaunted nearly a score of UN resolutions and conditions imposed as conditions of his first war; it was only the resolve of the United States along with the support of allies like Great Britain that ended the filling of the mass graves in Iraq.

Better than a Che Guevara t-shirt

A kimono printed with illustrations of the Japanese invasion of Nanking is just one of the items featured at the exhibit "Wearing Propaganda: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain and the United States" at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture.

In the years leading up to and including World War II - long before T-shirts became a medium for messages - wartime propaganda was printed on textiles designed for more formal clothes. The legend "England expects that every man will do his duty," echoing Nelson's famous message at the Battle of Trafalgar, appeared on rayon fabric used for scarves and dresses in the early 1940's, and a Japanese woman's silk kimono of the same period sports Nazi and Japanese flags in a subtle design that acknowledges the Axis alignment.

More, with pictures, here.

Happy all the time

Site covers good news only.

On Dec. 2, The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times Web sites led with news that 10 U.S. Marines in Iraq had been killed by a bomb, the deadliest attack against American troops there since August.

HappyNews went with "Emily, the stowaway cat, is coming home," about a Wisconsin tabby that got stuck in a cargo container and wound up in France.

Other lead stories on HappyNews recently included: "Man decks house with synchronized lights," and "Washington grape growers reap record harvest."

The motto of HappyNews:

"Real News, Compelling Stories, Always Positive" is what you'll find on HappyNews.com.

We believe virtue, goodwill and heroism are hot news. That's why we bring you up-to-the-minute news, geared to lift spirits and inspire lives. Add in a diverse team of Citizen Journalists reporting positive stories from around the world, and you've got one happy place for news.

Life with George Orwell

Was, not surprisingly, no picnic as a new cache of letters from his first wife reveals.

What did Eileen, a bright, spirited girl who had given up a master's degree to sit in a draughty hovel selling shillings' worth of groceries and watching her husband type, expect from her marriage? The first letter to Norah, sent from the Blair seniors' house in Southwold and dating from early November 1936, clearly follows a long silence.

"I lost my habit of punctual correspondence during the first few weeks of marriage," Eileen explains, "because we quarrelled so continuously & really bitterly that I thought I'd save time & just write one letter to everyone when the murder or separation had been accomplished."

Maryland: We're uglier than average

Beautiful-only online dating site ranks Maryland 31st in the nation in looks. Washington, DC comes in at 40, which makes sense if you factor in such part-time residents as Teddy Kennedy.

The site- which has its roots in Europe but started up in the United States five months ago - took a look recently at the distribution of its 8,000-plus members and decided that Maryland ranks 31st and Washington, D.C., is at a sad, sad 40th in the nation on its beauty barometer.

The rankings are based on percentages - the number of people from a particular area who applied to get into the online club, and the number of those who actually made it in.

Using that technique, New York topped the list of beautiful singles, with 25.8 percent of applicants being good-looking enough to get in. Those poor folks in North Dakota came in dead last.

And somewhere in between were all those rosy-cheeked skiers in Vermont. Those sweethearts in Tennessee; the potato-fed, manly men in Idaho. Those outdoorsy types in Oregon. The golden-tanned folks in New Mexico. The mild-mannered Michiganders.

In all, more than 38,000 people who have applied to the site have been rejected, administrators say, or more than one out of five.

BeautifulPeople Network bills itself as "a meeting place which is reserved for people, who because of their attractive appearance and personal qualities, stand out from the majority."

So, how do you make the cut?

The decision to allow you to enter our exclusive club lies with our members; who are given the chance to rate all new applications during a three day rating process. The majority vote is final.

We are proud to be the first online community in which existing members decide whether or not a new applicant should be accepted through our revolutionary rating technology. Once you have uploaded your profile, you will be rated by existing members of the opposite sex over a three day period. They will judge whether your picture and profile are deemed attractive enough to grant you coveted access.

While you are awaiting the rating verdict, you may browse members' profiles and mail them; this might improve your chances of getting accepted.

You will notice that all the members in BeautifulPeople.net are exactly that: beautiful.

Becoming your parents

Since retirement, my father's signature phrase (after "creep bastard," which is reserved for drivers who cut him off) has been "Where did the day go?" Meaning: I've been futzing with trivia all day long, accomplished nothing and now it's time to go to bed.

About 30 years too soon, I find myself saying that all too often. These days when I say that I've probably been blogging, or reading blogs. Saturday I was paralyzed from doing much of anything after an undeserved (but most welcome!) "Heh" had me alternately refreshing my site meter and picking my jaw up from the floor. Today, I'm not sure what I've been doing: Thinking about blogging?

Ah well, there's always tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.

Blogspot deleting blogs

Oy. Maybe I should back this site up? Question: How do I back this site up?

Via Orac.

Miscellany

Mammary mania: Scarlett Johanssen.

Dink cycle: Scenes from the landromat.

Vodka a la Trump: Taglines.

Indie films: Gay cowboys eating pudding.

Five golden rings: Salvation Army donations.

Seasonal horrors

The Irish Tenors singing Fairytale of New York, which I encountered yesterday while listening to the radio in the car. More awful Christmas songs here and here. And then there's this.

Cluelessness

Documented.

Can it be true?

Iraqis are optimistic about the future, survey shows.

The figures will provide evidence for supporters of the invasion and occupation to argue that the international media have got it wrong - that, despite everything, most Iraqis are wedded to a democratic future in a unified state and have faith it will come.

The findings are in line with the kind of arguments currently being deployed by President George W Bush.

The media wrong? Bush right? The mind boggles.

Abbas supports suicide bombers

What else can you call signing a law that gives their families a monthly stipend?

The legislation refers to the suicide terrorists as shahids (martyrs), a term generally applied to a person who dies in an operation fighting against Israel.

Under the new law, the terrorist’s family will be paid a base sum of $250 per month. The law takes into account extended family arrangements commonplace in Arab societies. The families of married terrorists are entitled to an additional $50 per month, and $15 are added for each child, $25 for each parent, and $15 for each brother who lived with the terrorist prior to his death.