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Amazon makes it easy for you to help out the people who got their lives annihilated by the tsunami. Donate to the American Red Cross’ Disaster Relief efforts right here.

Chris Caldwell at the Weekly Standard wrote about the failures of multiculturalism and free immigration in Holland. Looks like my brief glimpse of the country holds up:

Many discussions of the Netherlands suggest that the country’s multicultural model is “under threat.” Maybe that was true a year ago. Now it would be more accurate to say there is a society-wide consensus that it has failed. Even before he left office in 2002, PvdA premier Wim Kok had begun tightening the country’s asylum laws, and under the conservative premiership of Jan Peter Balkenende, the reforms have picked up pace. One of the top priorities has been marriage laws. Several immigrant groups have an endogamy rate approaching 100 percent: Young, marriageable people return to their homelands to find a bride or groom and bring them back to Holland. Many Dutch believe the marriage laws are being abused simply to confer automatic citizenship and the right to welfare payments on as large a number of foreigners as possible. As a result, foreign spouses marrying Dutch citizens must now be 21 and speak Dutch, and their eligibility for welfare is not immediate. Education in foreign languages has been phased out, so the Dutch can concentrate on teaching their own endangered language.

Read the rest. I gotta get back to work.

Holiday plans got scuttled, after the official VM girlfriend came down with food poisoning Wednesday night. We had to cancel our Thursday flight to visit her family in Louisiana for the holidays, as she was in no shape to board a plane, and the person I spoke to at Continental burst out laughing when I asked if there were any openings on a flight today.

So we’ll stay in NJ instead, and I’ll expose her to the wonders of Jewish Christmas: Chinese food and a movie.

(On the plus side, this means I won’t break my record (set last year) of 25 flights in a calendar year. I’ve boarded 50 planes in the last two years, and I’m really hoping to cut down the number of flights in 2005.)

Holiday gifts have been trickling in. Because I’m a Jew, friends send me gifts throughout December, hoping to catch Hanukkah. If they’re late, they can say it’s an early birthday gift (my birthday’s in January).

I love my friends dearly, and tend to give them gifts throughout the year, when the mood and the opportunity strike, but I’m trying to be more like normal people this year, and concentrate my gift-giving at the end of the year. Unfortunately, I’ve been too busy to mail my stuff out, so some of my friends and loved ones will have to wait a little while. I really did get some neat stuff for them this year. I did a lot of traveling, and picked up some things on the road.

Dad came through kinda early with a Sony video camera, which I still need to sit down and play around with, so I can start posting video to this blog.

My buddy Tom has sent me the wonderful Locas anthology, collecting about 700 pages of comics by the ever-amazing Jaime Hernandez.

My girlfriend has replaced the lucky mug that she accidentally busted, and gave me the 8-part New York documentary by Ric Burns.

My friends Paul & Deb graced me with this calendar of photography by Mick Payton. I’d been procrastinating on getting a 2005 calendar, so it’s quite fortunate that they came through with this sorta thing. Even if it does show black-and-white bondage-ish erotica photography. It’s certainly a change-of-pace from the Edward Hopper calendar I used last year.

I’m going to spend the holidays with my girlfriend’s family in Louisiana. In the process, I’ll be completing my 26th and 27th flights of 2005. Last week, I finally reached Elite status with Continental, which is nice. I mean, I reached Elite status with some of my friends a long time ago, but it’s cool when a major airline tells you you’re special. Even though they did mess up my special meal (I eat kosher on long flights, because you get better food that way) during the trip back from Amsterdam last week (which seems like it was 3 months ago).

The year, I’m trying to say, has hurtled by, whether I mark the months with realist paintings or beautiful women in handcuffs. The days are filled with joy and love, along with a ton of work. Here’s a song I listened to this morning. It’s by Massive Attack, and Sinead O’Connor sings it:

What Your Soul Sings
Don’t be afraid
Open your mouth and say
Say what your soul sings to you
Your mind can never change
Unless you ask it to
Lovingly re-arrange
The thoughts that make you blue
The things that bring you down
Can only do harm to you
So make your choice joy
The joy belongs to you
And when you do
You’ll find the one you love is you
You’ll find you love you

Don’t be ashamed
To open your heart and pray
Say what your soul sings
To you
So no longer pretend
That you can’t feel it near
That tickle in your head
That tingle in your ear
Oh ask it anything
It loves you dear
It’s your most precious king
If only you can hear
And when you do
You’ll find the one you need is you
You’ll find you love you

I took a break from the gigantic issue I’m working on, and watched Ying Xiong last night (that’s Hero to you roundeyes). My buddy Sang referred to this flick as “a Confucian action movie,” which I consider a recommendation.

It was, hands down, one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen, with action scenes that are absolutely breathtaking, and it reminded me of the feeling I get when I read the Iliad, that sensation of living in another world. Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon feels straightforwardly western in comparison to this movie.

I’m hoping the director’s followup, Shi Mian Mai Fu (House of Flying Daggers) is in the same ballpark. But I sincerely doubt any filmmaker can pull together a scene to rival the one in Hero where the army from Qin begins its assault on the callligraphy school.

My workload’s reached the level of near-impossbility, so blogging’s going to be pretty light.

Two observations, while I take a break this evening:

A) Prince sure was a blistering guitarist back in the ’80s. Showtime West is playing the concert flick for Sign o’ the Times, so I got to see the live version of I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man for the first time in around 17 years. I can’t believe this flick isn’t on DVD, since I actually am capable of watching concert movies at home (all-time fave: Stop Making Sense, current fave: Everything Everything).

B) Embarrassingly enough, I buy groceries at a place that sells this.

Today’s the 40th anniversary of the death of Sam Cooke, my favorite singer.

Pat Sajak spells it out:

Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror [the murder of Theo Van Gogh] because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?

Here’s an invite to any of my NY/NJ-based readers: Ari Scott, a delightful singer-songwriter (and former official pre-VM girlfriend), is releasing her new EP I Can Open My Eyes at The Bitter End (147 Bleeker St., NYC) tomorrow night (Tues., Nov. 30) at 9:30pm! Join me, the official VM girlfriend, and a bunch of our friends at the show!

Also, buy Ari’s first record, I Was Only Just A Chorus Girl. It’s a blast.

Relatively uneventful Thanksgiving weekend. The official VM girlfriend cooked a fantastic meal for me, the official VM Mom and my college buddy Mark. There was duck, cornbread/chicken dressing, fig/zinfandel sauce, butternut squash soup, and a sweet potato pie to die for. And there were plenty of leftovers, as expected.

The weekend/vacation was punctuated by a trip to suburban Philadelphia for my 15-year high school reunion (small turnout, and I left my digital camera at a friend’s house, so no pix).

My new assistant just started today, so I’m trying to turn my pontificate-o-meter down. It’s hard work, but I’ll figure out how to shut up someday.