How Do You Pronounce "Abu Ghraib"?
Slate explains that apparently even non-Iraqi Arabs are unlikely to get this one right, since the Baghdad suburb has a local pronunciation.
Repeat After Me: It's NOT Funny
Andrew Sullivan does not like this cartoon.
Idolatry
I actually find myself agreeing with Simon Cowell about something: Fantasia and LaToya are in a class by themselves.
Nelson Reconsidered
Smithsonian Magazine reconsiders Lord Nelson's place in history after a new discovery of letters from his long suffering wife.
Cold
I would be more impressed by Halley Suitt's commentary on how cold it is in New England if my brother had not lived four years in North Dakota, and then moved to Alaska!
Bad News for Babies
Attention Deficit Linked to TV Viewing (washingtonpost.com)
Very young children who watch television face an increased risk of attention deficit problems by school age, a study has found, suggesting that TV might overstimulate and permanently "rewire" the developing brain.
I admit that I park the kid in front of the TV when I am alone and I need to take a shower. Otherwise, we try hard to stimulate the baby in other ways. Even at 10 months, however, she loves Sesame Street.
Cooked
Andrew Sullivan has a poignant tribute to Alistair Cooke, from one naturalized Englishman to another.
Only in America
These days, it is not surprising to walk into the cafe at an urban Borders and find a homeless man seated at a table drinking coffee. It is still surprising, however, to see that the homeless man is using a laptop.
Goodnight, sweet prince
Yahoo! News - Legendary Broadcaster Alistair Cooke Dies
LONDON - Alistair Cooke, the broadcaster who epitomized highbrow television as host of "Masterpiece Theatre" and whose "Letter from America" was a radio fixture in Britain for 58 years, has died, the British Broadcasting Corp. said Tuesday. He was 95.
I grew up watching Alistair Cooke introduce Masterpiece Theatre, the one program on television that my parents invariably watched. His polish and assurance set the tone for the television program, lending a patina of English refinement and sophistication to the BBC retreads that followed. (Don't get me wrong, I love BBC retreads.) It has been years since I actually saw Alistair Cooke on television, but reading of his death marks the passing of another of the institutions of my childhood.
Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman Take 2
Divers - Ah! vous dirai-je, maman
"Ah! vous dirai-je, maman
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Papa veut que je raisonne
Comme une grande personne
Moi je sais que les bonbons
Valent mieux que la raison.
"Ah! vous dirai-je, maman
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Papa veut que je retienne
Les verbes La Laurentienne
Mois je dis que les bonbons
Valent mieux que les leçons."
Oh, if I could tell you mother,
How I suffer like no other,
Father wants me to reason,
Like a big person,
Me, I know that chocolate,
Is better than boring thought,
Oh, if I could tell you mother,
How I suffer like no other,
Daddy wants me to retain
Verbs Laurentian
Me I know that candies good,
Please me more than study could.
Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman,
"Ah! vous dirai-je, maman,
Ce qui cause mon tourment!
Depuis que j'ai vu Silvandre,
Me regarder d'un oeil tendre,
Mon coeur dit à chaque instant :
Peut-on vivre sans amant?"
Oh, if I could tell you mother,
How I suffer like no other,
Since I have seen Silvander,
Gaze on me with an eye so tender,
My heart asks when each moment's over
Can one live without a lover?
Super Automatic Coffee Makers
How It Works: Be Your Own Barista, With a Programmable Helper
"Unlike the $40 drip coffee maker, which requires a bit of work to get from bean to cup, superautomatics grind the beans, tamp the grounds, brew the coffee with hot water under pressure and provide steam to foam the milk. They even dump out the coffee grounds."
Some things a man prefers to do for himself.
Radio Waves
"Second perspective-alterer. Yesterday on All Things Considered, a very young thoughtful and sweet analyst, Mikel Jollett, explained slowly and carefully why rap music is a way for us old folk to look inside ourselves and find our parents and grandparents, disapproving of us as we now disapprove of the younger generation's music."
I guess we were listening to the same program. It"s a reminder that NPR is the best broadcast has to offer.
Home Cooking
I cooked Djej Emshmel -- chicken with preserved lemons and olives -- tonight, and I was quite pleased at how it came out. I need to work on the presentation, but the taste was delicious.
The Douglas
I spent the evening with baby watching In Harm's Way on American Movie Classics. Ostensibly a 1965 vehicle for John Wayne as a take charge admiral (starring opposite Patricia Neal as a Navy nurse and his main squeeze), the film is a much more interesting portrayal of his executive officer played by Kirk Douglas. An embittered veteran driven to drink by an incompetent commander, Douglas sobers up when Wayne arrives on the scene and makes Douglas his executive officer. After commiting a terrible crime, Douglas seeks to escape disgrace and punishment and redeem himself on a one man suicide mission that discovers the enemy fleet, including the legendary Japanese battleship Yamato. Having provided the intelligence crucial to victory Douglas perishes in a dogfight with four enemy Zeroes. I thought the role particularly interesting because it foreshadows the kind of role his son Michael would later play, rather than the more unidimensional Douglas of such films as Spartacus. The timing of the film, made as the nation was sinking deeper into the quagmire of Vietnam, is cause for reflection: hearkeing back to the moral clarity of World War II, the film is even shot in black and white to recall the old WW II propaganda films.
Fabulous
The ongoing stooory . . .
Norse Map or German Hoax? Still No Rest for Vinland (washingtonpost.com)
"When it surfaced in 1957, it was too good to be true: a purported 15th-century world map depicting an island to the far west labeled Vinilandia Insula -- the fabled Vinland -- proof positive, it seemed, that Norse explorers had reached North America long before Columbus."
My father still has a copy of the original book Yale published touting the Vinland Map -- purporting to show the Viking discovery of America -- before ithe map was exposed as a forgery. I grew up in the certainty that it was a clever fake, and that the University had been fooled. It seems not everyone is willing to let the matter rest, however.
Henry IV
My wife and I had a rare escape to the Shakespeare Theatre today, where we saw a very strong peformance of perennial favorite Henry IV pt. 1. Ted van Greithuysen, in a departure from his usual serious roles, played Falstaff; giving the fat knight a little more of an air of sophistication than usual, to great effect in such lines as "Banish not Falstaff thy Harry's company." One gets the sense from van Greithuysen's performance that Falstaff has a sense of what the future holds. Floyd King, whose usual line is clowns, fools, and buffoons, played Owen Glendower pretty straight, relying on Glendower's bizarre and pretentious mysticism to create its own comic effect. Finally, Andrew Long created a vigorous Hotspur with a biting tongue, and threatened to steal each scene he was in. Overall, the tavern scenes were most effective, whereas the fight scenes came across as perfunctory.
Caterina's Difference
"It's gonna have blood and hair on the walls," Marty said. Frank looked blank, the creative assistants nodded.
Wikipedia Bio of John Boswell
"John Eastburn Boswell (March 20, 1947 - December 24, 1994), a gay historian, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and educated at the College of William and Mary and at Harvard University. He became a professor of history at Yale University, and helped organize the Lesbian and Gay Studies Center at Yale in 1987. He was chairman of the history department at Yale from 1990 to 1992."