Sascha Baron Cohen Spotted in Middle East

Israeli and Palestinian talking heads have fallen prey to Sacha Baron Cohen, according to The Jewish Daily Forward (what, you don't read it over your gnosh?). They appear to be taking it in good spirits, although worried that Cohen is about to make comedic gold out of their tragic circumstances.

Book it, Yossi. And I can't wait to watch.

I wonder how much of these reactions by those filmed is created by the film's producers themselves. Hmmmm.

Elvis With Cuppa

Photographer Steve Schofield has portraits of US pop-culture consumers in the British suburbs.

No one captures my dorkiness artfully.

New Tom Wolfe

At best, I and all other bloggers are just poor pale comparisons of that unwieldy God of Journalism, Tom Wolfe. Anything he writes is an event to me. I don't care how faint his feel of today's American pulse is. The man's words are a scald to all those who consider a browse through US Weekly or In Touch as enough for them to state they are well-informed.

He has a new piece in this month's New York on the mag's founder, Clay Felker-a man of whom I've never heard. Here's the opening paragraph:

I took a second look—I was right the first time. The man’s shirt had a
button-down collar … and … French cuffs with engraved gold cuff links … a boy’s
lolly boarding-school collar … and … a set of cuffs from a partners meeting at
Debevoise & Plimpton … This shirt had to be custom-made … had to be.
Likewise, the man’s jacket … Catch the high armholes and the narrow cut of the
sleeves. They clear the French cuffs by a precise eighth of an inch. They’re
just short enough—just so!—to reveal the gold cuff links and not a sixteenth of
an inch shorter. Check out the shoes!—brown leather cap-toed English oxfords
custom-fitted so closely to his high-arched feet, they look absolutely petite,
his feet do, as if he were some unaccountably great strapping Chinese maiden
whose feet had been bound in infancy to make sure they would be forever tiny at
teatime … I could not imagine how a man his size, six feet tall and 200 pounds
at the very least, with a big neck, a burly build, a square-jawed face, could
possibly rise up from his chair here in a little bullpen slapped together out of
four-foot-high partitions in the sludge-caked exposed-pipe-joint offices of a
newspaper not long for this world, the New York Herald Tribune, and support
himself, no hands, teetering atop that implausibly little pair of high-arched
bench-made British cap-toed cinderella shoes.

Makes me want to go back to teaching. Preschool.

Thanks, Native Americans...

If you're like me, you are probably exhausted by the grievances each individual niche holds in our American potpurri (face it, no one tries to melt anymore). African-Americans want a national apology for slavery, hard-core vegans want you to apologize for eating meat, and Bush-haters want him to apologize for hurting the country. Lots of wounded feelings, all around.

Right when I want to say, "Get over it" I realize I suffer my own grievances, carrying torches for slights which would be much better extinguished. And then I read an article like this from American Public Media on how Native Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, and I think, "Wow, how classy and enlightened."

So it makes sense that, growing up, the Fourth of July would be a dark day
for Hudson, a sad tribute to the country that tried and tried again to
exterminate its native people and their culture. But it wasn't -- for Hudson,
the Fourth meant "summertime, family, fireworks. You can't wait for the
fireworks. As a kid you look forward to that celebration."

Hudson was not alone. Across the Fort Berthold Reservation-- what was
left of it-- people partied on the Fourth of July. Sno Cones and barbecues,
weaved together with older, indigenous traditions like powwows that would last
deep into the night.

At the center of the festivities was the drum. "The beat of the drum
means everything in the powwow," Hudson says. "It signifies the heart beat of a
people. There are different types of dances, ceremonies, give-aways,
acknowledgements."

People heal, and difference is celebrated. What a novel idea. We can all learn from this.

The Showbiz Pizza Band!

My folks never took me to Disneyland or DisneyWorld, so my first experience with the wonderful world of animatronics was the Showbiz Pizza which opened next to Venture on 95th and Pulaski. It soon became the cool kid's birthday party venue of choice (we still rocked my folk's basement). The highlights of Showbiz trips were visits from Chuck E Cheese (poor bastard), and a personalized serenade by the Showbiz Band. Totally freaked me out. With all the buzzes, flashes, and general funks of one too many kids who just had accidents, I could not stand Showbiz. And than to top it off I had to watch a Croft-like animatronic band of animals leer at us with their dead robot eyes? No thanks.

But now, it's awesome.



How soon does some club buy a version of this band off eBay and do this every night?

Dress Like A Stepford Mormon

You sat at home throughout the news of the Yearning for Zion raid, and later court actions, and your first thought wasn't, "These are some severely brainwashed and backward-ass women," but "I would look terrific in one of those Laura Ingalls Wilder dresses these ladies rock." You're in luck! You can buy the dresses here, at the Church's website. Yes, you too can look like the accomodator for the rape of your own daughters!

Next time some conservative wingnut tries to state that urbanites live in pestilence and sin, someone remind him about this group of rapists out in the Texas bush.

Seriously, anyone else want to vote Texas and Florida out of the union?

From an article in the Times.

American Intelligence Success

Maybe it's because today is the 4th, but I feel a blog that is consistently critical of U.S. intelligence agencies and their capabilities should give a shout out when credit is due. Our intel and servicemen were key in rescuing Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and a few Americans from the FARC two days ago in Colombia. The BBC has a great recap here.

The best news is it all went down, bad guys taken out, good guys alive and well, without a shot fired.

Bravo, U.S. military and intelligence.

Happy Fourth of July to everyone else. Congratulations on 232 years of a (mostly) successful experiment!