Susan and the Tsunami

Susan Sontag died today, age 71. She was one of the authors I most loved reading in college. From the Times obiturary:

In a 1992 interview with The Times Magazine, Ms. Sontag described the creative force that animated "The Volcano Lover," putting her finger on the sensibility that would inform all her work: "I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says, be serious, be passionate, wake up."

I think I'll put back on my nightstand: Illness as Metaphor, by Susan Sontag.

In other news, the death toll from recent earthquake and tsunamis is 44,000 and rising. Over a third are children. I made a donation in Susan's memory to the Red Cross International Response Fund.

She would have written something wry about such a confluence of events.

From Althouse's Cabbage Blog

From Althouse: Cabbage-blogging (via Instapundit):

There is also the cabbage of politics. H.L. Mencken has good political wisdom framed in cabbage terms: "An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup."

Jet Set for Jesus

Steve over at Blogalicious pointed me to this: e l i t e C X t e a m . o r g

It seems that Televangelest Kenneth Copeland has been told by God that he needs to raise $40 million from his flock in order to buy two Cessna Citation Jets to better spread the word of the Lord.

As you know, Gloria and I have been believing God for two Cessna Citation X's so that we can better fulfill the calling of Kenneth Copeland Ministries—to take the Word of God to the world—from the top to the bottom and all the way around.

Go to the web site to find out all the reasons why you too should help buy Kenneth his jet airplanes for Jesus.

Common Cause

Nick Kristof writes in the New York Times about the good work being done by the Right in When the Right Is Right.

Sure enough, looking at the most important national issues - Iraq, terrorism, budget deficits - I can see why liberals feel suicidal. Moreover, the Christian right's ventures abroad strike me as deeply misguided in some areas: "pro-life" policies lead to women dying in botched abortions, and squeamishness about condoms leads to teenagers dying of AIDS. The conservatives' cutoff of money for the U.N. Population Fund has meant less contraception, more abortions and more mothers dying in childbirth.

But the biggest obstacle to American engagement on international issues has been a lack of constituency for them, and that may be changing - if both sides can hold their noses and cooperate. Frankly, Democrats aren't going to accomplish much on their own over the next four years, but by working with the likes of Mr. Brownback they might register real progress on sex trafficking, an African-American history museum, malaria and immigration reform. That would be a much better use of the next four years than sulking.

I like it when the left and right find common cause.

Blood on Whose Hands

The Instapundit points me to this Belmont Club posting about the recent vicious attack on the americans in Mosul. Part of their argument talks about how political restraints on our part play into the enemies hands. They go on to mention ways this is abetted by the Left:

The Daily Telegraph describes how some European agencies actually refuse to look at mass grave sites to avoid being party to the punishment of war criminals.

Lack of European experts has held up the excavation of mass graves in Iraq, according to an American human rights lawyer working on the investigation. Greg Kehoe said the experts were not joining in because evidence might be used to sentence Saddam Hussein to death. ...

The article is interesting on the facts. Read it. However, it does occur to me that governments getting in the way of demonstrable good by getting stuck on principal is not a feature unique to the European Left. We see the same thing in the Bush administrations blocking family planning funding in the third world, because it might appear to encourage (or in fact, might actually encourage) abortion.

Either way, poor people in far off places lose. The article ends:

Enemy mortar teams lying in wait to attack doctors are one aspect of a coin which features the blind eye of some media and 'progressive' institutions on the other.... They can start by looking at the mass casualty station in Mosul and then glancing down at their hands.

Pardon me, but the responsibility for these attacks belongs to the attackers. You can hate the mainstream media for whatever reason, but it is just too much of a stretch to say that the deaths in Mosul result from insufficient media coverage. (How else can I interpret "a blind eye"?).

Now go wash your hands.

Scissor Sisters Rock

Had a great time last night at the Scissor Sisters concert last night in NYC at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

There was rather a lot of in-between-the-songs comentary from the stage, which I didn't need, but when they were singing, they totally rocked. Jake Shears was dancing around the stage like a mini Mick Jagger. All sequins and no body fat.

It was odd, among all the banter, to hear references to republicans, the recently released book, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, by C.A. Tripp, and my friend Andy's bigmuscle.com site [warning: Rated R], all in the same breath (they were just fantasizing about what Lavendar Lincoln's BM profile would look like, that's all. The decided his screen name would be "LincolnLogs").

But it's really all about the music, and I must say, their Comfortably Numb is my new theme song (and not just mine).

A surprise: I'd never heard the lead-in band before, VHS or Beta. When I go to their website, their music from their recent album Night On Fire just plays on, and it is full of long-greasy-hair goodness.

Warming the Brie

Yesterday, I had my housewarming party at Glowing Brie. It is important to do this before all the boxes are unpacked (or, as you know, it will never happen).

It was the apartment's first party, first overnight houseguest (since the boxes are living in the second bedroom, the sofa was pressed into service; Cody said it was fine), and first big kitchen adventure.

It was also Brie's first pet experience, since Adam brought Clifford (at left). This was Clifford's first trip to Brooklyn, and first subway ride, and it was harrowing (mostly for Adam). They ultimately arrived safely in Brooklyn, and took a car back (apparently the subway ride cured Clifford of his car anxiety).

Since I just bought a new griddle at Targét, I made blueberry pancakes and thyme eggs for everyone.

I'm happy with how it went, and there are a dozen bagels left over. Any takers?

A Shocking VAIO Dance

Saw this today at PC World: Sony Recalls, Repairs Some VAIOs

Under improbable circumstances, owners of the VAIO PCG-FRV25 and PCG-FRV27 can receive a mild electrical shock similar to a shock received from static electricity, said a Sony spokesperson. In order for this to happen, the notebook must be connected to a phone line, the user must be touching a metal surface on the notebook while grounded, and the user must receive an incoming phone call, all at the same time, she says.

How many kids are going to read this article, connect their VAIO to a phone line, ground themselves, and get mom to call them on the phone, just to see if it's really true?

Of course, I'm noticing this because my VAIO PCG-Z1A laptop, which had given me yeoman's service for the past year and a half, had its LCD screen (or graphics board) go black three days ago. That explains the resulting hole in my blog.

Only then do I find PC World's survey of 42,000 users, who are kind enough to rate reliability and service of Sony's at the very bottom of the heap. Look who's at the top: E-machines. Who'd a thunk it?

Armed Jews Week

Dave Kopel over at GlennReynolds.com provides a quirky take on Hanukkah in Armed Jews Week.

We have grown accustomed to celebrating a Hanukkah that is essentially meant to make Jewish children feel better about not getting Christmas presents. Dave takes us on a very different road, exploring the relationship between heroic (and militaristic) bible stories and the move away from passivity at the dawn of Zionism, resulting in a level of resistance during World War II that we don't often remember.

Although there is a widespread myth that Jews in the Holocaust were passive, they were actually more active than any other conquered people. In 1942-43, Jews constituted half of all the partisans in Poland. Overall, about thirty thousand Jewish partisans fought in Eastern Europe. There were armed revolts in over forty different ghettos, mostly in Eastern Poland.

... in France, Jews amounted to than one percent of French population, but comprised about 15-20 percent of the French Resistance.

You should read the whole article, while I go spin dreidles and eat fried foods. Indeed.

Glowing Brie

Finally, I've been in my new Brooklyn apartment long enough to unpack some of the boxes, and put up some of the pictures. Juan (a young sailor from the Galapagos, good at knots) helped with the unpacking, and my friend Frederick was instrumental in determining where all the pictures should go. The abode (like all my abodes) has been given a name. This one will be known as "Glowing Brie" (previous abodes have been "Eagle's Nest", "Oasis", and "Golden on Pond").

The name comes from the housewarming party invitation, which was entitled "A Brie Glows in Brooklyn".

More pictures at Flickr.com.

Jell-O shots, virgin or not

From CNN.com - Fourth-grader suspended over suspected 'Jell-O shots' - Dec 8, 2004:

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- An 8-year-old girl was suspended for nine days for bringing to school what appeared to be about 30 "Jell-O shots" -- though it was unclear whether they contained alcohol.

The school has a rule against possessing or trying to distribute "lookalikes", and the suspension would stand whether or not there was alcohol.

I wonder if they suspend students for drinking something that looks like a rum and coke...

Saving Gas

While I was in California last week, my friends Tim and Mark took me for a ride around the block in their new Toyota Prius. The exterior design is rather large in the tuchas, but the dash is a computer nerd's wet dream. I myself could never drive one, as I'd be constantly staring at the completely useless but absolutely mesmerizing on-screen, real-time animation that indicates the moment-by-moment power transfer among the engine components (slightly visible in the picture). The car is also full of software "easter-eggs", which you'd expect from an automobile that starts by pushing the hard reboot button.

Another technology is rapidly overtaking it though, that of quietly converting America's beloved V8 into an effective V4, as reported in this December's Scientific American: Firing on Half-Cylinders (subscription required). The idea is that modern electronics can quietly and efficiently shut down half the V8's cylinders when energy requirements are low, without impacting the V8 bragging rights of the American consumer. According to the article, a modern Sedan can produce 300hp, but requires only 30hp to cruise the highway. American drivers almost never need all that power, and the V8 wastes 6 to 20 percent of its energy making it available.

Notably, the number of engines incorporating the new cylinder-shutdown technology will top that of hybrid electric vehicles (such as the Toyota Prius) within a year or two. And by sheer numbers alone, the total gallons of gasoline conserved by the new power plants will soon thereafter overtake the amount ever saved by hybrids alone.

As always, it's not the science, but it's the market that determines the outcome.

Another Compromise at CIA

Did anyone else look at the headline on CNN.com, Frist predicts intelligence compromise this week, and think that another high-level spook was about to be unmasked?

Oh, that kind of compromise. I'd forgotten that sort of thing happened in Washington.

Escape to Canada Blocked

My friend Jim was distraught when he discovered he would be unable to immigrate to Canada:

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government, under fire because one of its ministers has been accused of giving preferential treatment to a Romanian stripper, said on Wednesday it was scrapping a program that handed out temporary work permits to foreign-born exotic dancers.

Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe said it was clear that not all Canadians supported the program, which granted permits to around 660 foreign strippers to work in Canada last year.

What other country has a Human Resources Minister?