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NYC editors-at-large CFC IV and Amo will be dispatched to the Bahamas office to train these two gentlemen in the tricks of navigating the Byzantine labyrinth, the political nest of vipers, that is the Blue Grotto's corporate and editorial structure. These two new hires are valued for their close ties to the local community:
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I was hoping to keep up a trickle of posts from the tiny 3 mile x 1/2 mile island in the Bahamas last week, but sitting in front of a computer screen for more than the bare minimum number of minutes when there is a beach with sand the consistency of confectioners' sugar and the color of a pink pastel Ben Silver cashmere sweater right outside just doesn't make any sense!
Here are some of the charming houses on the island, most from the 18th and 19th centuries:
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Here's the Methodist church:
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The beach:
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The real estate market on this petite paradise has rocketed into some sort of Nantucket-like orbit. All of the houses shown above are priced in the millions, and this next house, situated on a postage stamp-sized lot with no views whatsoever, is currently for sale for $600,000. I'm not kidding:
I have no idea whether or not Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio are cool guys or not (evidence surfaces from time to time suggesting that they, like everyone else, have their flaws and personality glitches), but what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? The point is that they are the Blue Grotto's picks for the two best actors working today.
Russell Crowe has a range without equal among actors. I would say that he's the closest thing in the versatility department to Cate Blanchett.
Leonardo DiCaprio positively seethes with emotion in all of his roles. To stand out the way he did in The Departed against a backdrop of assorted excellent actors requires a talent of massive proportion. In Blood Diamond, I felt like I was watching the character onscreen, not an actor playing the character.
Don't try to tell me that when the "great" Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino take roles these days, you ever feel like you're watching anyone but Dustin Hoffman or Al Pacino. Those two guys, who secured their status as film legends somewhere along the way, are the two most annoying actors to watch, period. They ruin every movie they're in.
Anyway, here's the article from Variety:
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Russell Crowe will join Leonardo DiCaprio in "Body of Lies," the William Monahan-scripted adaptation of the David Ignatius novel that Ridley Scott will direct for Warner Bros.
Donald De Line and Scott are producing; pic shoots in the fall.
Crowe will play Ed Hoffman, the manipulative CIA boss who teams with operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) to trap a dangerous Al Qaeda leader by planting a false rumor that the bomber is in cahoots with the Americans. Crowe has been working steadily with Scott since "Gladiator," teaming on "A Good Year," the recently completed "American Gangster" and the upcoming "Nottingham," a Universal and Imagine drama that will go into production early next year.
Crowe has been courted to play the CIA boss since DiCaprio signed on in April. He's awaiting a polish by "American Gangster" scribe Steve Zaillian before formally committing.
Crowe will next be seen starring alongside Christian Bale in the James Mangold-directed "3:10 to Yuma."
Mercer Consulting's New List, provided as a service to the globe-trotting Grotto reader base:
And here's a useful table comparing prices for items such as apt. rental and cup of coffee:
The entire Blue Grotto Editorial Board will be spending this weekend out on Shelter Island with several F.O.G.s. Then, on Monday morning, members of the Grotto staff will make their way much farther south to another beautiful, but toastier, island.
I hope to maintain a steady, if somewhat slimmer, stream of posts. I would expect regular Grotto rants about taxes and free markets to yield the floor to sputterings about hooking a nostril with a fly, swimming into some sort of jellyfish rally, driving a golf cart into the harbor like Inspector Clouseau's manservant, Cato, in Revenge of the Pink Panther, or suffering severe sunburn on some of the vast acreage on my scaphocephalic head . . . .
Anyway, here's the teensy, beautiful slice of heaven:
Recently, Russia has engaged in what seem to be Soviet-era tactics, such as a ballistic missile test, a threat to target Europe, and a suspected cyberattack against Estonia. Here are some other examples of Cold War behavior:
Feb. 17, 2005—Putin adopts a hammer and sickle as the Russian AIM buddy icon
Nov. 10, 2005—Putin flat-out accuses Bush of spreading capitalism
July 15–17, 2006—While hosting the 32nd annual G8 summit, Putin makes "yap-yap-yap" hand motions the entire time anyone else is talking
Oct. 18, 2006—Russia asks Latvia, the Ukraine, and Uzbekistan if they might want to reunite
May 9, 2007—Putin poisons anyone who isn't nodding in agreement
May 19, 2007—Putin orders forging of giant saber, for rattling purposes
June 8, 2007—Putin says in an interview with The New York Times that he would enjoy a scenario where the U.S. and Russia are interlocked in a world conflict that could ultimately end in global annihilation
This very good boy is sad because, like all good dogs, he just wants to be a valued participant in and contributor to as many family activities as possible!
Here's a hairy guy who was at tonight's yoga class. He's demonstrating the common pose, Warrior 2! He's the kind of guy that causes me anxiety in the pre-class "jockeying-for-position" period. You just don't want to get stuck next to this guy under any circumstances. It's important to recruit several ladies with whom you're friendly and have them put their mats down on either side of yours.
Note to dudes: Doing yoga shirtless or in any sort of skimpy outfit is a no-win situation. If you DON'T look like Michaelangelo's David, you should cover up out of a common sense of decency and respect toward your neighbor. If you DO look like Michaelangelo's David, it's all the more creepy, because then you seem to be saying, "I'm a male stripper, and I'll do parties for both bachelorettes and 'bachelors' . . . .
Old Jersey Real
The Greatness of The Sopranos
By Peggy Noonan
Friday, June 8, 2007 (Wall Street Journal)
"The Sopranos" wasn't only a great show or even a classic. It was a masterpiece, and its end Sunday night is an epochal event. With it goes an era, a time.
You know the story, and if you don't, you've absorbed enough along the way as you overheard people chat Monday morning around what we still call the water cooler and mean as the line at Starbucks. A New Jersey mobster with a family, a business and a therapist makes his way through life. It was a family drama that was a mob drama, but in some hard-to-put-your-finger-on way it was the great post-9/11 drama of our time.
"The Sopranos" first aired on HBO in 1999, but rewatching the first season, there's an air of preamble to it, as if something were coming. Something was, and the show really got its shape and mood from what followed in September 2001. Sometimes this was subtle -- Tony goes to his old uncle's place upstate and suddenly thinks about going to live up there where it's safe, where the birds fly on the lake. Sometimes it wasn't -- in the bar, he reads from a newspaper story about how unprotected the Port of Newark is. I remember this because at the time I'd begun to worry about the Port of Newark.
That kind of thing happened a lot with "The Sopranos." It was real, Old Jersey real (Satriale's butcher shop, not the mall) and primal. It was about big things, as all great drama is -- the human hunger for for dominance, for safety, for love; the desire to rise in the world; the need to belong to something, to be a Jet or a Shark, a Crip or a Blood, and have mates, homies, esteemed colleagues or paisans; how we process the hypocrisy all around us, in our families and among our friends, as we grow up; how we process hypocrisy in ourselves.
Because it was primal, its dialogue was pared to the bone and entered the language. You disrespecting the Bing? You wanna get whacked? And other famous phrases, many of them obscene.
The drama of Tony, the great post-9/11 drama of him, is that he is trying to hold on in a world he thinks is breaking to pieces. He has a sense, even though he's only in his 40s, that the best times have passed, not only for the Italian mob but for everyone, for the country -- that he'd missed out on something, and that even though he lives in a mansion, even though he is rich and comfortable and always has food in the refrigerator and Carm can go to Paris and the kids go to private school -- for all of that, he fears he's part of some long downhill slide, a slide that he can't stop, that no one can, that no one will. Out there, he told his son and daughter, it is the year 2000, but in here it's 1950. His bluster, his desperate desire to re-create order with the rough tools of his disordered heart and brain, are comic, poignant, ridiculous, human.
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| David Chase made "The Sopranos" a masterpiece. |
Tony became a new and instantly recognizable icon, and his character adds to American myth, to America's understanding of itself. It's a big thing to create such a character, and not only one but a whole family of them -- Uncle Junior, Christopher, Carmella. This is David Chase's great achievement, to have created characters that are instantly recognizable, utterly original, and that add to America's understanding of itself. And to have created, too, some of the most horrifying moments in all of television history, and one that I think is a contender for Most Horrifying Moment Ever. That would be Adriana desperately crawling -- crawling! -- through the leaves in the woods as she tries to flee her lovable old friend Silvio, who is about to brutally put her down.
Here is a question that touches on the mystery of creativity, and I'll probably put it badly because I can't define it better than what I'm going to say. David Chase is the famous and justly celebrated creator of "The Sopranos," the shaper of its stories. The psychological, spiritual and emotional energy needed to create a whole world, which is what he has done, is very great. It is a real expenditure, a kind of investment in life, a giving of yourself. You can't do what he does without something like love. Not sentimentality or softness or sweetness, but love. And yet in a way, if you go by "The Sopranos," Mr. Chase loves nothing. Human beings are appetite machines, and each day is devoted to meeting and appeasing those appetites. No one is good, there are no heroes, he sees through it all. The mental-health facility is a shakedown operation where they medicate your child into zombiehood and tell him to watch TV. Politicians are the real whores. The FBI is populated by smug careerists. In the penultimate show, a table full of psychotherapists top each other with erudite-seeming comments that show a ruthlessness as great as any gangster's. I guess I'm asking where the energy for creativity comes when you see with such cold eyes.
Not that they're unrealistic. They're not. One of the reasons the show was so popular -- one of the reasons it resonated -- is that it captured a widespread feeling that our institutions are failing, all of them, the church, the media, the law, the government, that there's no one to trust, that Mighty Mouse will not save the day.
In Mr. Chase's world, everyone's a gangster as long as he can find a gang. Those who don't are free-lancers.
And what he seems to be telling us, as the final season ends, is that all your pity for Tony, all your regard for the fact that he too is caught, all your sympathy for him as a father, as a man trying to be a man, as a man whose mother literally tried to have him killed, is a mistake. Because he is a bad man. He has passing discomfort but not conscience, he has passing sympathies but no compassion. When he kills the character who is, essentially, his son, Christopher, he does it spontaneously, coolly, and with no passion. It's all pragmatism. He's all appetite. Tony is a stone cold gangster.
There have been shows on television that have been, simply, sublime. In drama there was "I, Claudius," a masterpiece of mood and menace -- "Trust no one!" -- from which writers and producers continue to steal (see HBO's "Rome.") And PBS's "Upstairs, Downstairs." A few others. "The Sopranos" is their equal, but also their superior: It is hard to capture the past, but harder to capture the present, because everyone knows when you don't get it right. It takes guts to do today.
David Chase did, and he made a masterpiece. I'll be watching Sunday night, but I'll wake up that morning with a blue moon in my eyes.
October 26, 2005
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL — NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has yet to respond to recent allegations that he used NASA space shuttles on as many as one dozen unauthorized outings to such destinations as New York City, the French Riviera, and his vacation home near Ketchum, ID.
Griffin plays the Pebble Beach course minutes after blasting off from his Idaho vacation home.
A report issued Monday by NASA's Oversight Commission indicates a cumulative 1.8 million miles unaccounted for on the Atlantic, Discovery, and Endeavor shuttles. In addition, shuttle pilot James Kelly reported numerous occasions on which he found the pilot seat "adjusted for someone else."
The report also revealed that radio presets on the shuttles had been changed to receive various talk-radio stations from across the country, and that the cargo bays contained foreign items such as an old pair of sneakers, "aviator"-style sunshades, two empty Big Gulp Los Angeles Dodgers collector cups, and CDs that shuttle astronauts say are not theirs.
Griffin's apparent joyrides came to light last week, when sharp-eyed patrons at Georgia's Augusta National Golf Club spotted Discovery in the club's parking lot. Within hours, NASA employees began coming forward with their own observations.
"Every now and then on a Friday, Mr. Griffin would stop by Launch Complex 39B and say, 'Well, I'm off early today, taking the wife shopping on Fifth Avenue,' and I wouldn't think twice about it," said assistant fuel-cell technician Lawrence Clemmons. "But about half an hour later, the ground would shake, I'd hear this earsplitting roar from the pad, and then the shuttle would fly off."
"Sometimes I'd think, 'Hey, it looked like he had his overnight bag with him,'" continued Clemmons. "Then, on Monday, we'd get an e-mail from Mr. Griffin saying he was running behind, but he was just leaving Edwards Air Force Base and he'd be in soon."
Trajectory-optimization engineer Russ Holcum said he'd long suspected that Griffin "had an in" with the staff in Engineering and Fabrication. Said Holcum: "I figured he knew someone who cut him an extra set of keys or two."
Holcum added: "More than once, I heard him ask the Mission Control guys if they'd mind 'counting him down' on his way out before a long weekend."
In a press conference held Tuesday, NASA spokesperson Arjun Congrove apologized to taxpayers for the billions of dollars expended on the unauthorized missions.
"The shuttle costs an estimated $2 billion per launch, not counting delays and repairs, and for Mr. Griffin to use it to take his wife on luxury shopping trips to Europe is not appropriate," Congrove said. "We apologize to affected personnel at NASA, and to the good people of New York City whose homes were vaporized by Mr. Griffin's several unauthorized launches near LaGuardia Airport."
Griffin may face penalties ranging from dismissal to having his salary garnished for the next 376 years in order to pay for fuel.
I haven't read this new book, but it looks great! Plus, I trust the reviewer, Mona Charen, one of my favorite columnists.
The Dangerous Book for Boys
by Conn and Hal Iggulden
(HarperCollins, 288 pp., $24.95)
Boys Gotta Be Boys
MONA CHAREN
For decades this country has more or less tamely been taking instruction from the likes of Gloria Steinem, who advised that “we badly need to raise boys more like we raise girls.” An entire generation of parents, weaned on feminist claptrap, dutifully set about cleansing males of their boyishness. As Christina Hoff Sommers documented in The War Against Boys, the feminists were able to bend the Department of Education as well as the National Education Association to their preposterous agenda. Competition was frowned upon; stories of adventure and derring-do were replaced by tales of care and compassion. Recess, a last redoubt for smothered boys to expend some of their energy, was abolished at some schools.
But of course, the idea that boys could be just like girls, if only we would abandon our silly prejudices and raise them identically, has run into a ditch. Even some of the feminists (the practical sort, not the theorists) who actually had children were astonished to discover that virtually straight out of the womb, little boy units and little girl units think and behave differently.
The American debut of Conn and Hal Iggulden’s The Dangerous Book for Boys marks how far we have progressed from the feminist Dark Ages of a couple of decades ago. Here is an absolutely brilliant compendium of things that captivate the male of the species — and it is flying off the shelves.
Start with the title. Nowhere do the authors, who are brothers, explain why the word “dangerous” is included, but I suspect it’s because they know the male mind. Any boy surveying titles on a shelf will be drawn to that word as a candidate is drawn to a microphone.
My 11-year-old son immediately set about making the “greatest paper airplane in the world” after opening to page 2. He certifies that the Iggulden model does surpass all previous efforts and we have one parked on the very top of a high bookcase to certify that it really flies well. It will require some advanced engineering to get the thing down.
In one- to four-page increments, The Dangerous Book for Boys provides instructions, drawings, narratives, and pictures on about 70 topics. Here boys can learn how to navigate at night by the stars, how to build a go-cart, what are the famous battles of history, how to teach your dog to play dead, how to make an electromagnet, the rules of English grammar, the phases of the moon, dinosaurs, five pen-and-paper games, baseball’s most valuable players since 1931, how to make disappearing ink, the basics of first aid, and some things to know about girls. Every experiment — including how to make a periscope, how to grow crystals in a water glass, and how to make a timer and tripwire — was field-tested by the authors and usually requires only household objects, though some suburbanites like me might require multiple trips to the hardware store, as our supply of wood, small bulbs, and clothespins is not what it should be.
Like most moderns, we have our share of video games about the house and those clearly appeal to a part of the male psyche. Some are even educational. But what they fail to do and what this book does so well is nurture a boy’s natural curiosity and desire to manipulate his environment. If you have a boy, were a boy, or even know a boy well, do you have any doubt that he would love to build a battery with “ten quarters, metal kitchen foil, blotting paper, two pieces of copper wire, cider vinegar, salt, an LED (light-emitting diode, available from hobby and hardware shops), and masking tape”? Do you doubt that he would be interested in learning the dots and dashes of Morse Code? Or that he would leap at the chance to make his own bow and arrows?
The Iggulden brothers appreciate a boy’s curiosity about nature, history, mechanical things, and magic tricks. But they also gratify a boy’s longing for stories of courage, extraordinary deeds, and sacrifice. Here a child can find the stories of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, two climbers who scaled the west face of Siula Grande in the Andes in 1985 and almost lost their lives. Simpson broke a bone. Here is an excerpt:
The two men came to a cut in the ridge and Simpson started to climb down a face of sheer ice. He hammered in one of his ice axes and didn’t like the sound it made. As he pulled one out to get a better contact, the other gave way without warning and he fell.
He hit hard, his shinbone going through his knee and into the upper leg. As Yates climbed down, he [Simpson] tried to stand on it, appalled at the pain and grating of bones. The two men looked at each other in desperation. Simpson expected his friend to leave him. There was no other choice — a broken leg so far from civilization meant that he was dead.
Yates did not leave him, but I won’t spoil the story. You will also find here the life story of Douglas Bader, the flying ace who lost both of his legs in a 1931 accident but nonetheless served heroically in World War II.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley is reproduced in full in the section titled “Seven Poems Every Boy Should Know,” along with “The Road Not Taken,” “If,” and “Sea-Fever,” among others. Yes, there’s a whiff of the English gentleman about this entire compendium — despite the additions of the Declaration of Independence and the “Mountains of the United States.” The famous battles are a bit skewed toward English history. The Somme, for example, is introduced this way: “The Somme was the river in France that Edward III had crossed just before the battle of Crécy. The area has had a great deal of British blood soaking into its earth over the centuries, but never more than on the first day of the battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916.” This clearly came straight from the English version of the book, published last year. But that’s no great fault.
A few minor quibbles: Some of the photographs and drawings have captions, others do not. The writing is not always crystal clear, and some of the explanations of large subjects (such as the earth’s movement and the seasons) are a bit too brief.
Suggestion for the next edition: One subject that I have found to be of intense interest to boys is poisonous animals and plants. Whose venom is, ounce for ounce, the most deadly? (I’ve heard it’s the black-widow spider, but the Igguldens can research the matter.) A section on this would be welcome, I suspect.
The Dangerous Book for Boys is a celebration of boys — their eagerness, their curiosity, their energy, and their purity of heart. It nurtures their spirits and elevates their spongy minds with proudly and unapologetically masculine topics. Good show.
Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist.
Why did the 21-year-old cross the road?
Benjamin Carpenter, 21, was crossing a Michigan highway in his wheelchair when he became stuck in a semitrailer's grille and pushed for miles before the unknowing driver was pulled over, police said on Thursday.
Carpenter escaped unharmed, saying, "It was quite a ride," police said.
Click here to listen to the 911 tape.
Carpenter was attempting to cross on Wednesday when the light turned green and his wheelchair became hooked onto the front grille of the truck, which reached 50 mph during the 4-mile trip down Red Arrow Highway, Michigan State Police Trooper Michael Sinke said witnesses reported.
Carpenter was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He had been secured to his wheelchair by a seat belt.
Witnesses reported that the light turned green, so the truck took off, never seeing the wheelchair in front of him or the fact that it had attached to his front grill. When officers stopped the truck at a private business, Carpenter was in a calm state.
"The man spilled his soda pop, but he wasn't upset," said Sgt. Kathy Morton of the Michigan State Police.
Sinke said when he arrived at the scene, the man told him "'Yeah, I'm fine. I just went for a little ride.'"
"He was surprisingly normal," Sinke said.
About 4 p.m. Wednesday, a caller told police dispatchers, "You are not going to believe this: There is a semi truck pushing a guy in a wheelchair on Red Arrow Highway," state police said in a release.
Authorities initially wondered whether the report was a prank call until others called with similar reports.
When the truck finally was stopped, the driver didn't believe officers until he stepped from his cab and saw for himself.
"When he saw us, he was like, 'What's going on?"' Morton said.
"The truck driver had no idea," Sinke said. "[He] was in a state of shock."
Paw Paw Police Department Office Manager Susan Millek said their department got the initial call around 3:30 p.m. and Sgt. Kirk Goodrich and officer Tim McMeekan responded to the call. McMeekan said the incident was labeled a car pedestrian accident and he was prepared for a scene much worse than what he found.
"We were obviously relieved and shocked to see what happened," McMeekan said.
He said the family was notified within a few minutes and because the man is an adult, the department called to have someone pick him up.
Officers who responded to the scene said the fact that the man was unharmed made this story that much more unbelievable.
"Just the way he was uninjured. It’s just unbelievable," Sinke said. "Obviously someone was looking over him yesterday. I could go another hundred years in law enforcement and never see that again."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In 1958, when my father was in the Army, somebody gave him a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, which he read and loved. My father didn't know much about Tolkien, but he did know that he was an Oxford don and a close buddy of C.S. Lewis.
So, he wrote Lewis at his current address at Magdalene College, Cambridge (Lewis had spent most of his teaching career as a don at Magdalen -pronounced "Maudlin" - College, Oxford) to ask about the wonderful discovery. My father had not yet met Lewis, but he was already a huge fan.
Here's Lewis' response, in which he urges my father to dig into The Lord of the Rings!
It says:
Oct. 14th, 1958
Dear Mr. Howard,
Oh but, believe me, you are still only paddling in the glorious sea of Tolkien. Go on from The Hobbit at once to The Lord of the Rings: 3 volumes and nearly as long as the Bible and not a word too long (except for the first chapter which is a botch - don't be put off by it). The Hobbit is merely a fragment of his myth, detached, and adapted for children, and losing much by the adaptation. The Lord of the R is the real stuff. Thanks for all the nice things you say about my own little efforts.
Yours sincerely,
C.S. Lewis
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I have a newfound affection and respect for Matt Damon. As long as we're talking about him, I must say that he has really done a great job of picking parts that have turned him into a huge moviestar, respected for his dramatic roles to go along with the blockbuster activity. His buddy, Mr. Ben Affleck, has had a somewhat tougher time trying to strike the delicate balance. . . .
Anyway, Matt Damon was on Letterman two nights ago (in midtown New York City), and he strolled right out onto the stage in a Boston Red Sox home jersey and proceeded to needle, insult, and generally tear apart the Yankees for a good five or ten minutes. Go Matt!
Paste Magazine Editor-at-Large Jay Sweet is a longtime Grotto reader and contributor. You may recall a December 2006 post in which the Grotto's entire staff accompanied Jay to a Matisyahu show in Boston.
Anyway, Jay is periodically interviewed on Fox TV on various music-related topics. Here's a recent one in which he discusses good music venues:
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Enjoy!
Here's a golden thinking about how glad he is that it's summer, and that he can regularly chase seagulls at the beach. If he's anything like CFC IV's golden retriever Gus, his optimism and "gung-hocity" for the seagull-chasing project are not diminished in the least by his seagull-catching record of 0-860. The next seagull could be the one!
This one reminds me of the Summer of 1999. I was standing in the middle of a remote field in the Cordoba province of Argentina with a buddy, blasting away at the passing doves. My pal had a shotgun in one hand and a satellite phone in the other. He was literally chatting away with company CFOs, his partners, and his secretary, all but the last of whom thought he was kicking back in his office in New York in a suit and tie.
OK, I've had enough. I'm about to tie a cinder block to my neck and do a pencil dive into the harbor, and I don't even have children!
Check out the scenarios in the following column. What the hell is going on? Do today's Western parents WANT their children to fail? A "Tree of Peace" to indoctrinate toddlers? How about the British schools that are worried that hand-raising unfairly handicaps quiet children?
Note to parents: When your children get out into the real world, nobody's going to give a #%$#% if your kid is shy or quiet.
If I had gone to schools that had let me set my own agenda and created for me a warm and fuzzy cocoon of "sensitivity," I can guarantee you that I'd be a miserable, bitter loser (as opposed to a happy-go-lucky, often-in-error-never-in-doubt loser)!
I was born with genes that make me naturally veer towards the more "timid" end of the spectrum, and it has only been through an education at somewhat draconian, unforgiving, hard-nosed schools (Shore Country Day and Exeter) that I emerged even slightly prepared to bang into the brick wall of the real world. Secondary schools are sometimes called "Prep" schools. That's because they're supposed to help prepare kids for life. Hugging a "Tree of Peace" and not keeping score in soccer games to avoid hurting the feelings of the losers do not fall into the category of preparation for life.
I feel terrible for these poor kids. Education, and even more importantly the child-raising that goes on in the home, are supposed to prepare kids for life, not prolong the protected environment of the womb. Gimme a break!
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Jewish World Review
June 5, 2007
Children of Jihad vs. Children of the West
By Michelle Malkin
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"What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah!"
That is the charming verse kindergarteners in a Hamas classroom chanted last week during their graduation ceremony. The girls dressed in butterfly costumes. The boys donned camouflage, black masks, green bandanas and toy semi-automatic rifles. The video aired by the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memritv.org) features the children wielding swords and guns while mimicking paramilitary exercises.
And how are we preparing the children of the West to defend themselves against these little soldiers of Allah?
Scene 1: In New York City, one nursery school dragged 3-year-old toddlers to the office of Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx/Westchester/Rockland), where they sang "It's a Small World" around a 12-foot "Tree of Peace." The New York Press reported last week:
"The handmade tree, crafted by 17 children during pre-school class time, was a statement against American troops remaining in Iraq, and a call to pursue peaceful paths to end all world conflicts. This gift, however, seemed more like a Trojan horse, designed to gain an invitation inside so that the children's far-left leaning parents could rail against the war and the congressman's initial vote in support of it."
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The children's teacher, Valerie Coleman-Palansky, defended the stunt thusly: "I think it's appropriate for 3-year-olds to know that the world needs to be a peaceful place for everybody to live in and a safe place for everybody to live in."
Perhaps it's time for Ms. Coleman-Palansky to acquaint herself with the Palestinian Mickey Mouse. The chant of the little jihadists drowns out the Disneyfied reverie:
"What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah!"
Scene 2: I have a pet peeve. It goes beyond the antiwar indoctrination rampant in American schools. At the playground and at the mall, I see 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds walking around with pacifiers in their mouths. Kids old enough to feed and dress themselves. Kids old enough to figure out the remote control and cell phone. Standing upright, suckling on brightly colored binkies.
Where are the parents to yank the rubber from their mouths and force them to grow up? When did child pacification usurp the responsibility of child-rearing?
Scene 3: America is not alone in immersing its future generations in the culture of coddling. British educators have now determined that "asking pupils to put their hands up when they think they know the answer to a question in class could make quiet children fall behind," according to the London Telegraph. To spare students from this awful terror, the British Department of Education is now recommending that children be given 30 seconds of "thinking time" before being asked to answer or told to discuss questions in pairs before answering. Instead of teaching students to conquer their shyness and stand up for themselves, educators will be encouraged to pamper them in emotional bubble wrap.
On a separate front, British schools will be administering "happiness tests" to children as young as 4 to ensure high self-esteem. The Telegraph reports that the government has spent 20 million pounds on an "emotional literacy initiative" that promotes activities such as "worry boxes," where pupils write down their anxieties and post them into a box, and "emotional barometers," which pupils can use to show classmates the strength of their feeling about a subject.
I return to the video of the Hamas kindergarten class. Their "emotional barometers" break through the roof as one toddler with plenty of self-esteem leads the rest in a bloodthirsty call and refrain:
"What is your path? Jihad!"
"What is your path? Jihad!"
Back in London, the tots are taking their mental health quizzes. Teacher asks: "How do you feel?" The sheeple answer: "I've been feeling optimistic about the future."
Pardon me while I go fill my worry box. It's a small world, after all.
August 23, 2000
HAVANA, CUBA – Inspired by the hit CBS show Survivor, Cuba's 11 million citizens are participating in their own version of the popular island-survival game. "I hope very much to make it to next week," said contestant Livan Ordonez, eating a rat as part of a "Starvation-Immunity Challenge" during last Wednesday's episode. "If I do not survive, who will provide for the Ordonez Tribe?" Under the somewhat altered rules for Cuban Survivor, contestants who fail to remain on the island are declared the winners.
* 1884, Civil War hero Gen. William T. Sherman refused the Republican presidential nomination, saying, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."
* 1917, about 10 million American men began registering for the draft in World War I
* 1933, the United States went off the gold standard
* 1940, during the World War II Battle of France, Germany attacked French forces along the Somme line
* 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech at Harvard University in which he outlined an aid program for Europe that came to be known as "The Marshall Plan"
* 1967, Israel's Six Day War began
* 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel after claiming victory in California's Democratic presidential primary. Gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was immediately arrested
* 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that five homosexuals in Los Angeles had come down with a rare kind of
pneumonia; they were the first recognized cases of what later became known as AIDS
* 2004, Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, died in Los Angeles at age 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease
If you are unfamiliar with Edward Gorey's The Doubtful Guest, you need to get up to speed. Get the book: it'll take you all of four minutes to read it. This slim volume features one of the great Non-Human Characters of all time (up there with Yoda and the Geico Gekko). It also defies any sort of explanation. You'll read it, love it, and still end up scratching your head, saying "What was that all about? And what IS he?"
Anyway, a Hollywood insider has tipped off the Blue Grotto's Media & Entertainment Dept. that a film may be in the works. . . .
May 31, 2007
WASHINGTON, DC — New data from the U.S. Commerce Department show that rich, buttery goodness beat out automobiles, timber, and crispety-crunchitiness as the country's most valuable commodity in fiscal year 2006.
"Soaring demand among consumers for the melt- in-your-mouth sensation of buttery goodness, combined with increasing production efficiency, meant that more then 32 million tons were manufactured and consumed last year," said Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who noted that sales of chewy, double-stuffed deliciousness stagnated in this same period due to inflation and regional shortages of cream filling. Domestic orders for farm machinery, icy-cool mint, and computer components also fell last year.
On this day in …
* 1783, the Montgolfier brothers first publicly demonstrated their hot-air balloon, which did not carry any passengers, over Annonay, France
* 1878, the Ottoman Empire turned over control of Cyprus to the British
* 1896, Henry Ford made a successful pre-dawn test run of his horseless carriage, called a "quadricycle," through the streets of Detroit
* 1942, the Battle of Midway began during World War II
* 1989, hundreds, possibly thousands, of people died as Chinese army troops stormed Beijing to crush a pro-democracy movement
I surreptitiously snapped this blurry photo with my camera phone at the movie theater over the weekend. Whenever I go to the movies, I get to sadly study how embarrassing the state of America's youth has gotten.
My friend Katy usually rolls up a little late, so I normally kick back against a pillar and silently observe the junior high and high school kids coming and going from the theater, which is located in the super-depressing Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, MA.
My studies have shown that 90% of high school girls proudly display the lower-back tattoo (what CFC IV refers to as the "Jersey License Plate"), among other clues to the sorry state of the next generation.
I wish I had a close-up of this fellow (yes, it's a male). If they did an updated remake of The Breakfast Club, he could play the most confused, misguided, dysfunctional-family-byproduct of them all! He's sporting skin-tight Heavy Metal-style jeans, and his hair is vintage Heavy Metal, but not quite. See, it's meticulously brushed and parted, so it's more like the Glam-Metal-Meets-Boy-George look than just the straightforward Bon Jovi "Tousle."
On this day in …
* 1967, the Beatles released their album, "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
* 1977, the Soviet Union formally charged Jewish human rights activist Anatoly Shcharansky with treason. (Shcharansky was imprisoned, then released in 1986; he's now known as Natan Sharansky)
* 1980, CNN made its broadcast debut (Whoop-dee-do)
Let's Hear It for Socialized Medicine!
From National Center for Policy Analysis:
BRITISH GOVERNMENT COMES CLEAN ON HEALTH SERVICE QUEUES
The British government and National Health Service (NHS) recently acknowledged the country's wide gap between patient admittance and treatment, in its first attempt to tell the full truth about health service queues in England, says John Carvel, social affairs editor at the Guardian.
According to a NHS Department of Health analysis:
The shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, said the figures revealed "a postcode lottery in access to care." For many treatments, the 18-week target was not ambitious enough. "On the continent waits of this kind would be regarded as outrageous. But a one-size-fits-all target will distort clinical care and damage the NHS."
And Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, added: "Behind the statistics, thousands of sick people are still waiting more than a year for hospital treatment. This is a daily tragedy."
Source: John Carvel, "One in eight patients waiting over a year for treatment, admits minister," Manchester Guardian, June 8, 2007.
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