“Ripped from today’s headlines” takes on a whole new meaning.
Lightness? Wait.
When I went through a significant break-up in college (1989-1993), I would watch Miller’s Crossing and re-read The Unbearable Lightness of Being. When I had my big split two years ago, I went back to Kundera’s book. It meant a lot of different things to me in my 30s. The things that appeal in college years seem laughable when you’ve lived in (some semblance of) the real world for a while.
John Banville recently returned to the book after 20 years.
“My name’s Buster. Buster Hymen. Pleased to meet you . . .”
Re-virginization? Troubled latinas? A Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute? Who knew?
“Triumphalist Self-Pity”
The British are so much better at ripping idiots apart, as this review of a book on Orwell & Hitchens proves.
Master Fly Gil Shizzle wants to know. . .
What’s your pimp name?
(thanks to Diamondtrim A. Valentine for the tip; now where’s my money, bitch?)
Disgust
The news about U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners fills me with revulsion and horror. The perpetrators should face severe punishment.
I’m glad our freedom of the press allows the media to expose such horrific acts.
Sure, just pile on the totalitarian dictator when he’s down. . .
Kofi Annan, feeling the heat: “If you read the reports, it looks as if the Saddam regime had nothing to do with it. They did nothing wrong–it was all the U.N.”
Nah, it wasn’t all the U.N., Kofi. If the reports are true, it was also a French minister of the interior (who opposed the war), a Labour MP in the UK (who opposed the war), the Russian “office of the president” (which opposed the war), and possibly your own son (no idea where he stood on the war).
Of course, we may never find out the truth, since the U.N.’s files on the oil-for-food scam seem to be woefully incomplete and inaccurate.
Interpreter of Maladies
Thanks to Instapundit for linking to this DoD briefing, where Donald Rumsfeld offers a comment on the practice of using mosques as firebases:
There are two ways, I suppose, one could inform readers of the Geneva Convention stipulation against using places of worship to conduct military attacks. One might be to headline saying that Terrorists Attack Coalition Forces From Mosques. That would be one way to present the information.
Another might be to say: Mosques Targeted in Fallujah. That was the Los Angeles Times headline this morning.
Instapundit also links to this neat article about how the Iraqi army managed to keep its bunkers insect-free . . .
Palestinian Vigilantes?
According to this article, a pair of masked, armed Palestinians tried to stop a pair of suicide bombers, one of whom elected to blow himself up, also killing the people who were trying to stop him.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t consider gunmen in masks to represent moderation, but I do take a story like this as a good sign that Hamas isn’t the only force in action among the Palestinians. I hope I’m making the correct reading of this event, and that it presages a popular uprising against Hamas.
Update: An article in the Scotsman explains that the masked men were . . . street criminals! And they were trying to mug the bombers! I know I shouldn’t laugh about this, but I am. Probably because I so politicize everything, it never occurred to me that something like this would happen. Sue me, alright?
“Baby Ka-Boom”
Oh, I wish I would’ve been the one to come up with that title. Unfortunately, I can’t take credit.
In the early 1990s, I remember reading about how portable ultrasound units were enabling Chinese villagers to find out if pregnant women were carrying male or female babies. Then, typically, they’d abort the female babies. According to the article I was reading, it was reaching a point where some regions had a birth-rate of 32 boys to every 1 girl.
There’s a new book on the subject, and it predicts that China will engage in a massive, bloody conflict by 2020, presumably because of the pent-up frustrations of all those grown boys. The book is Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population, by Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer, and the Chronicle of Higher Education just ran a neat article on it.