The Fug Girls, who have a pretty suh-weet gig commenting on all things fashion related for New York Magazine have some valid things to say about Vogue's "Shape" Issue. If you're unfamiliar with the "Shape" issue, this is when "my hair is bigger than my body" editor Anna Wintour decides that it's time to put out an issue to appease The Big Girls, and by "big" I mean the girls who wear a size six, not a fourteen.

Cut to the Fug Girls:

Every year, as a nod to the abnormality of its bony universe, Vogue publishes a shape issue purporting to spotlight non-model bodies for a change. It often feels as perfunctory as it sounds — like alpha-twigs know anything about cellulite? — but this year we dove in with extra curiosity thanks to Anna Wintour’s recent criticism of runway models’ diminishing frames. Would that sentiment bloom into an issue that actually honored real clothing sizes and three-dimensional shapes?

Not so much, apparently.

{...}Yet, short of featuring a bacon-cheeseburger on the cover, this is sadly probably the best we can expect from Vogue. It just isn’t in the habit of realism. Because it peddles fashion and fantasy better than anyone, these clumsy attempts to soften up just feel as patronizing and ham-handed as a Very Special Episode of Blossom, but without the hats. So while we’d love to see women of various sizes in the magazine — wearing bizarre $20,000 goat coats like any other model — if it keeps feeling like an act of bored, forced obligation, we’d rather Vogue climbed back on its pedestal and left us to get our feel-good fix from Glamour. And a pizza.

The Girls have a point. Vogue is, well, Vogue. It's meant to be the fashion bible, and, yes, while it's frustrating to look at the photo spreads in that magazine and be disheartened that a. the models keep getting younger and younger (and, no, I don't mean that in the context of my getting older; they're honestly no more than fourteen or fifteen years old at most, and hence have the body types associated with that age (no hips, no boobs, they've lost their baby fat, but haven't gained any Reese's peanut butter cup-associated fat, either.)) and, b. that the clothes are extremely impractical and just are not meant for anyone. At some point you just have to realize that they're peddling this magazine not to budding fashionistas, and people who love clothes, but to photographers, and the art world. The clothes are the art, and as such, you want the art to look good, so you hang it on a nice wall, aka a size zero model.

I know I'm rare in that I've actually modeled a bit---and when I mean "a bit", I mean I had a total of three jobs when I was in high school, and I did it a. as a favor to a lady I knew who worked in the advertising world, who needed models who weren't from the local Barbizon school and b. for the cash, because I got paid $50 a pop. While it was actually the most boring job I've ever held down (and that's saying a bit), tottering around in high heels on a four-foot platform the size of a child's shoebox, it was, nonetheless, educational. If I had to go on tee vee, even now, almost twenty years later, I could do my own makeup. I know what clothes are most flattering and work with the limitations of the cameras (no red, no checks, or optical illusion-type patterns). But mostly what I learned is that, if you're smart, you realize that they don't really want you because you have a charming personality, charisma, or a vivacious smile, although that's part of what you bring to the table, it's that whatever they're peddling will look good on your body. You are just a hanger for their clothes. That's it. Therefore to sit there, and flip through Vogue, and base your entire self-image on what the hangers look like is a bit ridiculous. If you're looking through Vogue to find women who "look like you" and you aren't an androgynous, prepubescent, bony young girl, you're going to be a bit disappointed, aren't you?

I'm just tired of playing this game. The fashion magazines are in existence to sell clothes. They make a lot of money on this, hence, they know how to do it, which means they're going to use skinny, young models, with dewy skin and the bodies of a twelve-year-old boy to sell the wares. Women read fashion magazines to keep up with the latest trends, to see who's doing what in fashion, to see what they want to buy. But there is a disconnect---the clothes that are advertised, generally speaking, aren't made for the women who buy the magazines. This is just what the deal is. I'm weary of reading article after article about how the average American woman is a size fourteen and how disheartened they feel after watching tee vee or reading a fashion magazine, how angry they are that none of this is meant for them; how these magazines and designers are holding them up to a standard they'll never meet. I'm tired of the argument of how the fashion magazines, the entertainment industry, et. al, are encouraging eating disorders in young girls because of the images they put out. I'm sick of Kate Winslet and other actresses holding themselves up for the admiration of all because they claim they choose not to starve themselves, when it's patently obvious that they're nowhere near "average size" and that they simply cannot be because of the demands of their jobs, in front of cameras, which really do add ten pounds. I'm sick to death of all of it, even though, from time to time, I'm just as guilty of perpetrating these issues on this here blog as anyone else who's bitched about size-two models. I've had a change of heart, however. As Joshua once said in War Games, the only way to win the game is not to play. While I will grant you, he was a computer and was chatting about Global Thermonuclear War, the machine's got a point.

It's time for an attitude shift.

If women are really sick of what Vogue and all the other magazines are peddling, STOP BUYING THEM. Stop buying the products they advertise. That will send them a message as clear as anything else. If, however, you want to buy the magazines and wear the clothes advertise, start working out so you can fit into them. It's your choice. You won't be happy, probably, because no one wants to be hungry all the time, but if that's what you really want, go for it. You have my blessing, because at least you'll be doing something about it, instead of wishing for the impossible to happen. If young girls are starving themselves to fit some preconceived notion of what beauty is, my question usually is, where are the damn parents? How can they not see that their daughter is excusing herself to go and throw-up after every meal? I once read a story somewhere about a girl who had hundreds of empty paint cans shoved under her oversized princess bed, and instead of being full of paint, they were full of vomit. This was how she chose to hide her problem. She knew that the toilet in her bathroom would eventually plug up, so, living in a new development, where there were plenty of empty paint cans available in dumpsters nearby, she started appropriating them and used them as her own personal vomitorium. How did her parents not realize this? This whole thing is a sick, co-dependent cycle. There is choice involved. Women choose to participate in this game and on either side of it, each needs the other's dysfunction to keep going, otherwise they themselves will disappear.

Is this a reality-based solution? Probably not. But, I have a bit of a different perspective on all of this since I went through chemo. I hit absolute rock bottom in terms of vanity toward the end of my treatments. There's no getting around it:I looked like a spud. A bald spud whose face had been rounded off with steroids. In fact, you could pick out all of Dr. Academic's patients in the waiting room because we all looked alike. I had no eyebrows or eyelashes, which you need for facial definition. I had no hair, through which to express my personality or my sense of style, despite what I was wearing. Because my skin was gray, with nary a shade of pink to be found in my cheeks when I went severely anemic, and the deep, dark circles of exhaustion under my eyes that never went away no matter how much sleep I got, I looked ill. There was absolutely nothing I could do in terms of clothing or makeup that would make me look like anybody other than what I was at that point: a sick person. While I wasn't happy about it, there wasn't much I could do about it, either, and that, in itself, was, surprisingly, liberating. I could go out of the house and know that this was as good as it got, and while it wasn't very good, at least I wasn't "looking good and feeling better" in a room on the oncology floor of the hospital. I could leave my house, do what I could manage to do, and while I didn't look great, and, most of the time didn't feel great, this was, in and of itself, a big deal. I was alive and moving, and that wasn't too shabby. I knew that, someday soon, the rest would come back once the treatments were done. And it did come back, even if I was impatient for it to do so. When my eyelashes, eyebrows and---Mother of God!---hair came back, it was cause for much rejoicing. The first time I could put on mascara in a few months, I was happy as a clam, and I'm still get a small, cheap thrill every time I put the stuff on. I'm sure I'll get back to bitching about the crap soon enough, but all of this provides an important lesson, to be sure: none of this stuff is necessary. Sure, putting on make-up and dressing in stylish clothes can make you feel nice and normal, but, on the whole, this is stuff you can live without. You can live without reading Vogue as well, or buying new clothes, or trying to live up to someone else's standards about your appearance. You don't have to play the game. In fact, the only way to win the game is not to play.

Perhaps this is all overly optimistic of me, because I'm obviously not coming from a place where too many people have been, but that's just the way I see it. You have a choice: you can either buy into this scenario, choosing one side or the other, or you can choose not to. It's up to you.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It may be really wrong of me to say so, what with the exploitation of a three year old to describe the downfall of Eliot Spitzer and all, but, screw it, it's still funny.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:09 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm a little late on this one, but as I get the opportunity to bitch about Northworst Airlines, it's not like I'm going to pass this one up. The proposed merger between Northworst and Delta has been put on the back burner.

A new era of belt-tightening is beginning for Northwest Airlines, as its executives respond to abnormally high fuel costs and craft a future that in the short run isn't predicated on a merger.

The company's planned combination with Delta Air Lines was envisioned as a way to create a global airline that would be a long-term survivor in an intensely competitive industry. Their networks are compatible, with Northwest dominant in Asia and Delta strong in Europe.

But now that merger looks to be on indefinite hold, and with it the vision of building a larger company that could grow its way to greater profits while also being better insulated against cyclical downturns.

Now some analysts are forecasting that most major U.S. airlines will lose money this year, and additional cost savings are tougher to find because a number of carriers -- including Northwest and Delta -- already have restructured themselves in bankruptcy.

{...}An evolving part of that strategy is how to deal with much higher fuel prices than management anticipated.

Northwest revealed last week that its fuel bill could reach $5.2 billion this year if oil averages $104 a barrel. That's $800 million more than the carrier projected for 2008, or more than half of the $1.4 billion in annual labor savings that Northwest achieved from its workers during bankruptcy.{...}

Riddle me this, Joker: one of the reasons NWA went into bankruptcy a few years back (besides the fact that the fat cats at the top would get paid more if they reorganized under Chapter 11 before new bankruptcy laws were enacted) was because of "astronomical fuel prices" that they hadn't anticipated. Now, a few years later, they're still whining about how quickly fuel prices have gone up and how they haven't worked this into their business plan? How the eff is that possible, when anyone who fills up their car on a regular basis knew that the price of oil wasn't likely to go down anytime soon? Eh? How is it possible that the MBAs at Northworst thought that prices would go down and calculated their projections accordingly?

I've gone on at length in the past about how shitty it is to be stuck in a Northworst dominated hub. Everyone I know who lives elsewhere refuses to believe that the situation could be as crappy as it is. They have received good deals and good service from Northworst. I regularly get emails from my brother in Austin, who would really like me to visit, claiming that it's only a hundred and some dollars to fly from Austin to MSP, so why don't I buy the freakin' ticket already? Of course, I have to regularly disabuse him, because NWA wants twice as much from me to fly from MSP to Austin.

Northworst has a lock on MSP International Airport. They control over seventy-five percent of the gates. The population of the Twin Cities is close to three million people and we don't have a low cost airline available to us. Neither Southwest nor Jet Blue operate here. Why? Because Northworst won't let them in. They threaten and cajole the Metropolitan Airport Commission with the loss of their business, and because they've set themselves up in the dominant position, and MAC is worried that they could find themselves with a huge but empty airport, they cave every time. Never mind the fact that, in the early nineties, Northworst borrowed somewhere around $125 million from the state to stay out of bankruptcy, never paid the money back, let alone the interest on the loan, and then had the debt forgiven when they did declare bankruptcy. Never mind the fact that Northworst, an airline that didn't have one of its flights forcibly hijacked and crashed on 9/11, had its lobbyists up on Capitol Hill on 9/12, begging for federal assistance to keep running before the fires at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center had stopped burning.

Then there's the fact that they treat their customers like shit. They just don't give a rat's ass about the people who actually fund their billion dollar largesse. You pay through the nose for a ticket because you don't have any other option, (for instance, we have a family reunion coming up in August, and I checked the prices the other day, just to see where they're at. Currently, they want $506 per person to fly from MSP to Austin in early August. You're generally supposed to get some discount for purchasing early, but not now. They're going to get you coming and going. Get bent.) You show up at the airport to check-in for your flight, and, if you got stuck in traffic and are running late, be prepared to be yelled at about your tardiness by the ticket agent, with dire threats of your bag not making onto the plane hurled at you for good measure. If you're lucky, you walk away from the counter without paying anything extra. But, if you haven't packed carefully enough, or tried to fit all of the belongings of many people into one bag, you're screwed. They weigh every piece of checked luggage to make certain it doesn't weigh over fifty pounds and if it does, in the name of funding their worker's compensation plan (or so they say), they charge you $25 on the spot. You get through the hassle that is security, then you go and get a bottle of water for your flight, so you don't get dehydrated. Because the airport is paying off a load of debt Northworst forced them to take on to upgrade the airport (otherwise, of course, they would have taken their business elsewhere), you wind up paying $3 for the bottle of water, the costs of debt servicing having been passed on to the retailers through astronomical rents, who, ultimately, pass them onto you, the paying customer. Then, after you're treated to the hassle of getting to your gate, and after you've been treated indifferently by the rude gate agents, who always have something better to do than the job they're paid for, you get on your plane, where you're crammed into a seat that would only fit a toddler comfortably. If you want to sit in the bulkhead, or the emergency exit rows, you have to pay extra for the privilege of opening the emergency exit doors in exchange for a little more legroom. Once you're settled in your extra small seat, and are crammed in like sardines in a tin can, you are, predictably, told by the pilot, that you're going to be late taking off. To make up for the late take-off, the pilots jam up into the stratosphere as fast as they can, causing your ears to pop, for babies to wail, and for allergy and cold sufferers to moan in pain. The speedy rise in altitude is, of course, accompanied by a rapid descent, which causes even more pain and wailing. When you actually land, you have to suffer through an interminable taxi to the gate, the indignities of unloading, only to have to wait a half hour or longer to get your luggage, which, undoubtedly, will have been shaken and jostled by baggage agents who could not care less if you actually like your possessions and would prefer for them to remain in one piece. Never mind that your bottle of shampoo has exploded in mid-flight because of the massive shifts in altitude and all of your belongings are now covered in soapy goo.

But I've neglected to mention the wonderful customer service that the flight attendants offer. They no longer help people stow their carry-ons, but rather bitch and moan when there isn't enough room for all of them, and then get on the loudspeaker to berate people, and inform them that the plane isn't taking off until they, the passengers, get things sorted out amongst themselves and someone checks their bag. When they come around with the beverage cart, they sniff if someone requests something that would require them to do some work, like mixing a Virgin Mary. Then, if you're the husband, and are sitting on the aisle, prepare to have a flight attendant dump milk down your $800 black cashmere sport coat. They do, somehow, manage to apologize in this circumstance, but only because it's going to come back and bite them on the ass if they don't. They'll offer up some club soda and where to send the drycleaning bill, but if the jacket comes back from the cleaners with the milk stain intact, don't bother trying to get compensated for the loss of the jacket, because not only will they want a copy of the original receipt, which was lost to the sands of time, they want to know how much the jacket is worth now, forcing you to sort out the depreciation on a cashmere sport coat that's going to cost just as much to replace as when you originally purchased it. Because that's all they're going to pay for if you manage to get them everything they want in the first place, which happens to be an inordinately large amount of paper. They actively look for ways to get out of their obligations. But I digress. Then, after you manage to get your one obligatory beverage out of these people, if you want something to eat, because, perhaps, if you're me, you have to take medication that requires it to be taken with food, you'll have to pay extra for a teeny can of Pringles. Then, when they're done with serving, the flight attendants roam the cabin, collecting trash as quickly as they can so they can get back to their jump seats, where they'll bitch, loudly, about how onerous their jobs are, and how people can be such a pain in the ass, within earshot of said people.

And all this is if your flight goes off as planned. God help you if there are weather or mechanical related delays.

This is what passes for customer service on Northworst. I'm not alone in this opinion, either. While I'm sure there are nice people that work very hard for this airline to make their customers happy, and they will howl with outrage at this rejoinder, all I can say to them is that your compadres are ruining it for you. Again, I'm not alone in my complaints. Everyone I know here in the Cities has at least one Northworst horror story in their repertoire, and everyone they know has a similar tale of woe. We talk about it at dinner parties: it's a favored topic of conversation. When that many people have had a poor experience with a company, something's wrong. Unfortunately, Northworst does nothing to fix these problems. They file for bankruptcy, in part, to pay their employees less, and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the customers are going to suffer as a result. Furthermore, Twin Cities residents are supposed to consider ourselves privileged that Northworst has headquartered itself here, and that MSP International Airport is a hub. We're supposed to consider ourselves lucky that we have an international airline at our disposal. Well, pardon the language, but fuck that. We're expected to take it from all angles: as taxpayers we have to bail this stupid company out, and fund their largesse through tax breaks and airport expansions they declare they need to stay competitive, and then we're stuck using them because they have a lock on the market. We're held hostage by this freakin' company. I, for one, would have been extremely happy if they'd merged with Delta, because perhaps we would have started to receive some decent customer service. Perhaps they could have found some cost savings and stopped nickel and diming us at every turn. Perhaps we would have received some decent, fair pricing. But that's not going to happen.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that I hope Northworst does go out of business. It would be better for the people who are forced to fly this garbage airline because we have very few other alternatives, but it would be better for the Twin Cities economy as a whole, because, perhaps, the freebies we hand out to Northworst on a regular basis would finally come to an end. The free market would find a solution to the problem of all those empty gates at MSP, and we would finally get some competition in this market.

UPDATE: Oooh, how convenient! Proof of more nickel and diming to make my point!

If you want to check a second bag on your next trip on Northwest Airlines, you'll be paying an extra $25 starting May 5.

The fee applies each way on flights for passengers in coach class.

The move, announced this afternoon, follows an industry-wide trend started by United Airlines in early February.

If you travel extra heavy, you'll have heavier costs. The Northwest changes also include an increase from $80 to $100 for three or more checked bags, and an increase from $25 to $50 if a bag weighs more than 50 pounds.{...}

I can't check two suitcases without paying extra? Bite me. The sooner this airline dies a horrendous and painful death, the better.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Good grief, but does that stupid gray pillbox hat bother me. Taaaaaaa-cky. The whole outfit is hideous!

If one is unaccustomed to the duties and responsibilities attached to first lady-ship, like Carla Bruni-Sarkozy obviously is, it seems reasonable that one would look to see how others had done it, for inspiration. The only problem with looking to Jackie O for fashion inspiration is that, ahem, she was first lady almost fifty years ago. Anything you come up with that Jackie would have worn, way back in the day, is bound to be a bit dated, n'est ce pas? You live in Paris, with some of the world's best designers in your mobile phone, and this is what you come up with for your first state visit?

That the hat is, apparently, shrouded in the wool from a WWII era blanket, is beyond the pale. I wonder if it reeks of mothballs, because it looks like it should. Don't even get me started on the shoes.

It's not every day when you can say Queen Elizabeth II is more fashion forward than an ex-model.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Terminator shitcanned Dirty Harry.

...and lived to tell the tale.

Must have something to do with the fact he's actually a robot and those .357 .44mag* bullets just pinged right off.

Don't know what I was thinking. My apologies. Thanks to Bike Bubba for the correction

Posted by: Kathy at 10:46 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Yesterday, the FT published a rather lengthy interview/analysis piece focused on the new President-Elect of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. The man whom nobody (you know, other than Vlad the Impaler) knows had some rather choice things to say. It's a long piece, but it's good.

A few highlights of the article:

{...}Mr Medvedev’s inauguration on May 7 will mark a unique moment in Russian history. For the first time a Russian leader – whether tsar, Communist general secretary or post-communist president – will voluntarily leave office on time and at the height of his popularity. Yet it also heralds the start of a risky experiment. Mr Putin will leave the presidency but stay on as prime minister, in what some see as merely a ruse to remain in power. Others warn it could create a dual-headed power structure, which has spelt instability in Russia’s troubled past.

The president-elect insists the arrangement can work. He describes it as a “tandem”, in which both men understand the division of labour spelt out in the constitution. Mr Medvedev, as president, will set the priorities in domestic and foreign policy. He is commander-in-chief, makes the key decisions on forming the executive, and is guarantor of Russians’ rights and freedoms. The government, headed by Mr Putin, implements policy, especially in the economic arena.

He has much to prove, therefore, not just to the former military and security men nicknamed the siloviki or “men of power”, but to the outside world, where he remains an unknown quantity. Until two years ago, Mr Medvedev was largely a backroom operator, as Kremlin chief of staff. Two stints as chairman of Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant – a position he still holds – will have provided only a hint of the pressures he faces running a country where the political environment is as unforgiving as a Siberian winter.

So how does Mr Medvedev intend to assert his authority? In his first interview since the March 2 election, RussiaÂ’s next president outlined his priorities and offered an insight into his political philosophy. Speaking through an interpreter whose English he frequently corrected, he spelt out how he planned to continue Mr PutinÂ’s course while putting his own stamp on how the country is governed. He was clinical and dispassionate in his answers, without the folksy wit or earthy language of his mentor, scribbling occasional words and doodles on a Kremlin notepad.

His starting point is his legal background – he is, he says, “perhaps too much of a lawyer”. Meticulous and precise, he sees almost every issue through the prism of legal thinking. But behind the occasionally laboured language lies a deeper goal. Mr Medvedev says he wants to do what no Russian leader has done before: embed the rule of law in Russian society. “It is a monumental task,” he agrees, switching momentarily to English. “Russia is a country where people don’t like to observe the law. It is, as they say, a country of legal nihilism.”

{...}Mr Medvedev insists Russia can build the rule of law, outlining a three-point plan. The first step is to assert the law’s supremacy over executive power and individual actions. The second is to “create a new attitude to the law”.

“We need to make sure that every citizen understands not only the necessity and desirability of observing the law, but also understands that without [this] there cannot be normal development of our state or society,” he says.

Third is to create an effective courts system, above all by assuring independence of the judiciary. Judges must be paid more and their prestige enhanced so Russian law graduates, as elsewhere, see becoming a judge as the “summit of a legal career”.

Proper law enforcement is also fundamental to tackling another age-old problem that Mr Medvedev has made a priority – bribery. The president-elect is equally severe on the motorist paying off a policeman to avoid speeding fines as on the bureaucrat taking a cut on a business deal.

“When a citizen gives a bribe to the traffic police, it probably does not enter his head that he is committing a crime ... People should think about this,” he says. He also pays lip-service at least to the idea that those at the top of the “vertical of power” Mr Putin has created must set an example themselves. “The only way that Russia can count on having the supremacy of the law is in a situation where the powers-that-be respect the independence of courts and judges,” says Mr Medvedev.

When pressed, moreover, the president-elect signals a break with recent years by saying he will rein in any security and law enforcement services found to be engaged in illegal business. It seems a hint that he may be prepared to confront the siloviki clan – those most unhappy with his elevation to president. Viktor Cherkesov, head of Russia’s anti-narcotics service and a former KGB general, complained late last year that rival security services were fighting between themselves for wealth and influence.

{...}“I am a supporter of the values of democracy in the form that humanity has developed them over the last few centuries,” he says instead. “My definition of democracy as the power of the people is in no way different from classical definitions that exist in all countries.”

In what appears a veiled sideswipe at the US “freedom agenda”, he calls it a “dangerous extreme” to attempt to develop democracy in a country “outside its historic or territorial context”.

“Our democracy is very young,” he says. “It’s less than two decades old. Before this, there was no democracy, not in Tsarist times and not in Soviet times.”

But in words that may be welcomed in western capitals, Mr Medvedev makes clear he gives short shrift to those who say Russia is barren ground for democracy. “Russia is a European country and Russia is absolutely capable of developing together with other states that have chosen this democratic path of development," he says.{...}

Ok, enough with the theory, let's get down to business. Russian business, that is.

Mr MedvedevÂ’s overall thrust is that if RussiaÂ’s economy continues to expand, and it can build the rule of law so corruption can be overcome, its democracy will mature into something more closely resembling international models. His biggest priority, he says, is to translate RussiaÂ’s oil-fuelled economic recovery into social programmes that transform the lives of citizens.

{...}Mr Medvedev concedes the need for careful marshalling of the economy, but trumpets its strength. Russia’s financial and stock markets, he contends, are “islands of stability in the ocean of financial turmoil”.

“What makes us confident is that over the last eight years we have managed to create a stable macroeconomic system,” he says. “Our financial reserves ... are higher than ever before, reflecting the overall state [of] the Russian economy.”

The president-elect does not say specifically he will reduce the state companies that have proliferated under Mr Putin, which rivals and many economists charge with inefficiency and stifling competition. But he does say they should operate only in certain, limited sectors, for example where essential to the stateÂ’s economic security.

“The number of state companies ... should be exactly the number required to ensure the interests of all the country, but no more,” he says. Mr Medvedev also repeats campaign pledges to reduce the number of state representatives – often ministers or senior Kremlin officials – on state company boards and bring in more independent directors.{...}

So, basically, Gazprom and Rosneft will continue to operate as arms of Russian foreign policy, but they're not going to go into trade as haberdashers any time in the near future. Status quo, in other words.

As far as that foreign policy is concerned, well, let the man speak for himself:

“Any effective leader ... has to take care of defending the interests of his country. In foreign relations, you can’t be a liberal, a conservative or a democrat.”

On Russia’s most strained foreign relationship – with the UK – he says it is in Russia’s interests to see an improvement. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate him on his election victory, he adds. Economic relations remain “magnificent”, with British investment in Russia totalling $26bn. Bilateral relations, such as co-operation between intelligence services, have been largely “rolled up”, though this is “not a tragedy”. But Mr Medvedev does not shrink from repeating recent accusations that the British Council, the UK cultural body whose offices outside Moscow were forced to close, has been involved in spying.

“The reports I get as one of the leaders of the country show that there is a problem with this,” he says. He deflects suggestions that last week’s detention of an employee of TNK-BP, the Anglo-Russian oil joint venture, might be a bid by security services to sabotage any improvement in UK-Russian relations. In this case, too, he says, his information suggests there is a case of industrial espionage to investigate.

Russia’s next president gives little sign he will adopt a more conciliatory approach to the US, with whom relations have deteriorated sharply. But he says he told George W. Bush, during a call to congratulate Mr Medvedev on his election, that relations might have been even worse were it not for the personal chemistry between the US president and Mr Putin. He holds out some hope of a “legacy” deal with the US before Mr Putin steps down to resolve disputes over US plans to site elements of a missile defence shield in eastern Europe, and over how to replace the Start treaty limiting strategic nuclear missiles, which expires next year. But Mr Medvedev warns that offering Ukraine and Georgia the prospect of Nato membership at a summit next week could undermine attempts to mend transatlantic ties.

“We are not happy about the situation around Georgia and Ukraine,” he says. “We consider it extremely troublesome for the existing structure of European security. No state can be pleased about having representatives of a military bloc to which it does not belong coming close to its ­borders.”{...}

In other words, don't even think about offering Georgia and Ukraine Nato membership, otherwise we'll feel threatened, and you wouldn't like it when we feel threatened. BIG OIL AND GAS RICH HULK SCARED! HULK TURN OFF HEAT IN MIDDLE OF WINTER TO TEACH YOU A LESSON!

So, I suppose the question would be, do we know anything new about Mr. Medvedev? Perhaps. Although, I don't think so. My impression is that he simply told everyone what they wanted to hear. What do western leaders want to hear? That he's all about the rule of law and democracy. Did they get what they wanted? Yes. What does foreign business want to hear? That he'll put and end to corruption, and that the nationalization of industry would, in essence, be stopped in its tracks. (I'm sure Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi feel comforted.) Did they get what they wanted? Yes. What does the nationalist base who elected him want to hear? That he'll stick up for Russia against "western aggression." Did they get what they wanted? Yes.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

I suspect we'll see what Mr. Medvedev is made of when the cost of a barrel of oil plunges. It will only be then, when he'll be able to cut the puppetmaster's strings, that he'll dare to dance to his own tune. Until that point in time, watch what dear old Vlad is up to, and not Mr Medvedev: it will be a waste of your time to do otherwise.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Courtesy of TechCrunch, we have for you this morning, the digitized version of the Vietnam War Memorial.

Here's the story:

Footnote has taken the initiative to digitize all 58,000 names inscribed into the Vietnam War Memorial. It has also correlated them with military personnel records from the National Archives and made this information searchable from within an interactive Flash application.

The project started by hiring a National Geographic photographer to take over 2,000 high quality photos of the wall. The company then stitched them together, indexed the names, and pulled out information about each person from two major national databases: one for casualties and one for personnel. The whole process took about four months to complete and the end result is being provided for free.

If you want to find a particular name, you can run a simple keyword search. YouÂ’ll be shown key facts such as the personÂ’s rank, grade, specialty, and casualty date. You can also search for names that conform to certain criteria such as enlistment type, race, hometown, casualty date, squadron, and much more.{...}

And it works well. For instance, meet the man for whom the husband is a namesake.

Pfc. Michael Laverne Pheiffer is the husband's first cousin, and, unfortunately, he was killed of "multiple fragmentation wounds" in Binh Duong province a little over a month after his first tour of duty started. This is information the husband never had. If his family knew this information at all once upon a time, it's information that was lost over the years. All the husband knew was that he was named after his cousin who died in Vietnam; he didn't know any of the particulars. But now he does. The husband has always felt a little awkward about the fact that he knew relatively little about the relative he was named after. He once told me it felt a little disrepectful to carry this man's name, but to know so little about him. This will never tell him what sort of a person Michael Pheiffer was, or what he was like to know, but it does provide something that his family had never provided: bare facts about what he was doing there (he was drafted) and how successful he was in his mission (sadly, not very). From that you can deduce a few things, none of which make Michael Pfeiffer less of a person or a soldier, but, nonetheless, fill out the story a bit more.

There are an awful lot of people who can't make it to the Memorial in D.C., for one reason or another, but due to the wonders of the internet, they can at least take a peek at the names on the Wall, and find out some very valuable and relevant information that's not necessarily available to those who visit in the flesh.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:16 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Last night, Mr. H. and I ventured down to the Minnesota Zoo's IMAX theater to take a peek at U23D.

Now, I'd never seen a movie filmed in the IMAX format before, let alone a 3D movie (yes, kids, somehow I missed Jaws 3D), so I wasn't really familiar with the format, let alone if a 3D experience was really, well, three dimensional. I figured, if nothing else, it would be an opportunity to see the Vertigo tour show, because Mr. H. and I had been cruelly shut out of ticket purchasing opportunities when they hit town two years ago. While I am a U2 fan, and have been listening to their music ever since I was fourteen (which is, precisely, the same time my well-documented crush on The Edge developed) my fandom is nowhere near the level Mr. H. has attained. He's a U2 fanatic. He has every album they've ever released, including the rare imports. He has books and DVDs. And, after one memorable front row experience on the Zoo TV tour, he has, in a Ziploc baggie, carefully preserved a tee shirt he was wearing that Bono's sweat dripped on. So, as you might have gathered, after the cruel ticket mix-up, Mr. H. was really looking forward to seeing this film. I, too, was looking forward to it, because, honestly, it never sucks seeing U2 perform.

We were, however, not expecting what we got, which was, well, everything even the most lackadaisical U2 fan could have ever wanted, let alone someone as dedicated in their fandom to U2 as Mr. H. It went ABOVE AND BEYOND anything we could have expected. It was amazing.

Imagine, if you will, a sixty-five foot white wall, and steep, expansive, theater seating opposite it. We positioned ourselves in near to the middle of the seating, placed our overlarge 3D glasses on our heads and strapped in for the ride. The opening of the film, when they were rolling the credits, was, I believe a way to orient the viewers to the 3D experience. You followed a young woman, running, and it became obvious, only after a few moments that you were following the first person through the gates, and she was doing the mad rush authorities no longer allow you to do when you go to a concert---rush for the general attendance spots near the stage. The shot then went to a darkened arena, where the fans were anxiously awaiting the band's appearance on stage. Confetti was thrown, and it seemed you could reach out and touch it as it fell. The Argentine flag was being waved, and it felt as if you could have been whipped by it. People in the audience were positioned directly in front of you, and, again, it felt as if you could reach out and touch them.

Then the band came out.

They started off with Vertigo, and when they screamed, "HOLA!" and the South American crowd went wild, the illusion was complete: it was real, you could reach out and touch them if you wanted to. By the time they played my personal favorite song of all time, Where the Streets Have No Name, I actually had to remind myself that I was not at a U2 concert, and jumping up, dancing, singing along, and in general just going wild, would not be welcomed by my fellow movie viewers. It's hard to describe the experience. The people at the IMAX had put up, before the film started running, tidbits of several positive reviews of the film, and one of them said something to the effect of, "It's better than being front row at a U2 concert." And it was---but in a very specific way. If you've ever been to an event you've only previously watched on tee vee, and then gone to the same event as it was staged live, you know that cameras can provide something you, the average spectator in a huge arena, cannot view: your eyes simply aren't good enough, your brain cannot process all that several camera operators and a crew in a control room can. But you'll never, when watching a concert on film, have the experience of being jostled by the crowd as you gaze up to see your favorite band playing; you'll never feel the heat of all the people crowding you; or the absolute communal exhilaration when the band rocks the house down to its foundation. The twain, in other words, do not generally meet. Here, however, they do. You get the experience of seeing it all, being able to catch things only cameras can see, whilst simultaneously feeling as if you're there. It's amazing. I don't know how they did it, but the filmmakers managed to accomplish the rare feat of making a concert film that actually makes you feel like a participant, not just a spectator.

The sound was fantastic, but wasn't overpoweringly loud. The play list was exceptional, and included many favorites like Bullet the Blue Sky from The Joshua Tree, but also New Year's Day, Pride (In the Name of Love), Sunday Bloody Sunday, that are U2 staples, and fan favorites, but that they don't play live all that frequently because they prefer to focus on the newer stuff. The play list was obviously tailored to appeal to all, but in this instance, it wasn't shooting for the lowest common denominator audience---this is STILL quality music, that is still worth listening to, almost twenty, and in some instances, almost thirty years later. It wasn't at all like when The Stones roll out Brown Sugar for the umpteenth time, and you can see that while they're bored with it, that this, nonetheless, is what pays the bills, so give the audience what it paid $120+ (per person!) to see, lest they not want to show up again and feed our largesse. This is music U2 still cares about, and that's enough for them to play it properly and with verve.

About the only downside of this film is that Adam Clayton, the bassist, was obviously having fun with the 3D aspects and he kept hamming it up in front of that particular camera. Many times it felt like you were going to get smacked in the face with the end of his bass, but, honestly, that was the only downside of the film. It's an AMAZING experience, and if you like U2 even a little bit, or even have a grudging appreciation for the band, let alone are U2 Fan #1, YOU NEED TO GO AND SEE THIS FILM. It's incredible. If you can see it in IMAX, I highly recommend doing so. Mr. H. tells me it's going to general release soon enough, but the IMAX experience is well worth the extra high admission price.

Trust me on this one. You won't be sorry.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:02 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I was chatting with my niece, Maggie, on the phone last night. They were waiting for their easter eggs to get up/down (?) to room temperature before they could dye them. After discussing how chocolate easter bunnies are lovely things, and how solid ones are better than hollow, I asked Maggie a simple question:

Me: Are you going to be a good girl for Easter?

Maggie: Are you going to be a good girl?

She didn't even pause whilst coming up with an expert deflection. She just zinged it right back to me.

By the way, she's seven.

Way to go, Maggie! {insert sniffles of pride here} I suspect you have a long future ahead of you in the legal field.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Seems as if the Easter Bunny has been doing some of his runs early.

I can practically feel Moses' temper being tested, can't you?

Posted by: Kathy at 09:17 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So, this morning, I decided to walk up to the library to return some books. It was a relatively nice day, and since we're supposed to get six inches of snow tonight/tomorrow, I figured I'd better take the opportunity to get out and about before the world turned into one big slurpee.

I'm walking along, minding my own business, trying not to wipe out on the various icy patches, and despite the fact it's below forty degrees outside, the fact that the sun is shiny and warm, the walk is turning out to be a pleasant experience. A hint that spring is around the corner, and I'll soon be able to do this on a regular basis without worrying about ripping out my pants and can avoid all the public humiliation that goes part and parcel with such an event.

I approach a busy intersection and, because the light has just turned green, I start to walk across it. I'm not hustling, because I know from experience that I've got plenty of time to get across it, and it's nice outside---I'm not in the mood to pick up speed. I get to the other side, and, because I need to cross the intersecting road, I wait for that light to turn green. While I'm waiting, some prosperous looking jagoff in a silver Volvo, decides this would be a good time to honk his horn at me. I turn and look, and as his window is already rolled down, he starts yelling, "If the sign says 'Don't Walk,' DON'T WALK BITCH!"

Then he rolled up his window and drove off. Bewildered, I just held up my arms, in what is universally accepted code for, "What the fuck was that all about?" He saw me from his rear view mirror. I know he did, because he paused for a moment at the top of the hill, before jamming on the gas again and taking off.

What is it with these obnoxious drivers? I don't have to press the crosswalk button. If it's been a long time since Driver's Ed, let me remind you that----ahem---PEDESTRIANS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. And, yes, that includes not pushin the "Walk" button, and not moving as quickly as you'd like. As long as I'm not jaywalking, I'm in the right. The crosswalk button is there for people with small children, who need a longer period of time to make it across. I don't HAVE to press anything when the light is already green. That is my right by law. But, apparently, the law is not good enough for him. I did not move quickly enough for him, who, had to wait for me to make it across the width of one lane before he could turn right. And, God, you know, that JUST TOOK TOO FREAKIN' LONG TO HAVE TO WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO CROSS THE ROAD, so he had to delay his trip even more by stopping his car---in the middle of traffic, mind you---to yell at me.

This is becoming a problem around Cake Eater land, because this is not the first time some guy has yelled at me from their very fancy, very expensive cars about my failings as a pedestrian. I am sick of this shit. I regularly feel like Dustin Hoffman's character in Midnight Cowboy "I'm WALKING here!" Today, it was Volvo Guy. A couple of years ago, it was Black Toyota SUV Guy, who actually turned around, parked his truck, got out of said truck and tried to find me after I refused to move more quickly, so he could turn left, while I was carrying two heavy bags of groceries. His truck was about a foot from my person, he was gunning his engine, honking his horn, and, as I was royally pissed off at his behavior, I just stood there for a moment, refusing to move in one direction or another, to make my point. When I did move, he squealed around the corner and I went into another store. When I came out, the same guy was standing on the sidewalk, steaming, hands defiantly placed on hips, looking in the direction I had been headed. I walked right past him, a grocery bag in either hand. And he was, apparently, so pissed off that he didn't recognize me, even though I'd been about a foot in front of his truck, staring him down ten minutes previously.

Last autumn, it was Beemer Guy. early on a Sunday morning, I was walking up to the local bakery to get the husband a muffin. There was very little traffic at this hour, but there was some. One car in particular. I was waiting for the light to turn green at the intersection about a block away from our house, and when it did, this "gentleman" in a white, five series Beemer, who was waiting for me to do my business so he could turn left behind me, started gunning his engine before I could even enter the crosswalk. I was not only annoyed that someone had his panties in a bunch at seven-thirty on a Sunday morning, I was threatened by his behavior as well. I don't know about you, but I am NOT going to walk in front of a car where the driver is gunning his German-engineered engine. One slip of the foot, and I'm road kill. Thanks, but no thanks. I've spent too much time in the hospital already, I'm not looking for more. I waved my hand, insisting that he should go first. After he took advantage of my generosity, I shook my head and muttered to myself. He then stopped his precious Beemer, (again, in the middle of the street) and waits for me to get within shouting range. "If you've got something to say to me, SAY IT! YOU HAD YOUR TURN! I DON'T NEED THIS SHIT TODAY!" I just stood there, and stared at him until he decided to storm off.

Look, I'm a pedestrian. I walk places. I am used to coexisting with automobiles and the people who drive them. I am accustomed to obnoxious drivers, who regularly honk their horns at the slightest infraction, who blow through red lights and who are monstrously pissed off when I don't get out of their way as quickly as they'd like---and believe you me, you can never get out of their way quickly enough. Even if you're running, it's not fast enough and you should speed it up. Surprisingly enough, as well, I'm also used to the drunks who like to turn left, illegally, by turning into the wrong lane right in front of you, as in, if you'd been two steps further than you actually were, you would have been flattened. I am used to these people. I always make sure to cross at a crosswalk, with the light, so that if they choose to hit me, I will be able to sue them back to the Stone Age. But to actually start screaming at a random pedestrian? That's just not kosher. That should be a sign to you that you've got anger issues, and should start paying visits to a therapist. I don't really care if you're having trouble paying your mortgage, if your house isn't worth as much as you thought it was, if your wife is fucking the Guatemalan pool boy, if the lease payment on your overpriced sports car is getting to you, or if your kid didn't score well enough on the entrance exam to get into Blake. I don't care about any of these things. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SCREAM AT ME FOR NOT GETTING OUT OF YOUR WAY! I have every right to be there. When I'm there, in a crosswalk, you yield to me, asshole, not the other way round.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1316 words, total size 7 kb.

It's interesting the people you meet on the web.

A few years back, I had the pleasure of meeting a lovely lady, Pat, on some boards I used to frequent. She's a professional translator, who used to live with her husband, Pascal, and their three kids outside of Toulouse, in a little town called Auterive. A little over a year ago, the family uprooted and moved to Dakar, for Pascal's work, which has something to do with water treatment plants. They still, however, have their lovely farmhouse in the French countryside, which was built on the ruins of a monastery, and now you, if you can afford to travel to France despite the atrocious exchange rate, can rent their guest house!

Go here, if you're interested.

There's decent skiing nearby, and the joys of the Pyrenees abound. It's a short hop to Lourdes, and if you're looking simply for a base in the region and have a car rental, it would make a good location.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 175 words, total size 1 kb.

Stealing is wrong.

But when someone actually manages to be clever about it, instead of the number of thieves in this city who simply attach a chain to a truck and pull out window frames or walls to steal cigarettes from a neighborhood convenience store (What? A black market in smokes in Minnesota? Couldn't possibly be! Nice job, Pawlenty!), well, my feelings become somewhat conflicted about casting them in a civic morality play. Yeah, they did wrong, to a great number of people, but you can still be impressed with their cunning ways, and think, perhaps, they should get some points off for being clever, quick and non-violent about it.

Take this guy, for instance:

If the accusations against Chad M. Storey are true, give the North Oaks man a big fat A for effort, along with some jail time.

Storey, 34, is accused of concocting an elaborate system of hoses and switches that allowed him to siphon gasoline from another vehicle into his own, all from the comfort of the driver's seat of his shiny red Dodge Ram 1500 4x4.

Storey was charged Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court with one count of possession of burglary tools. The sophistication of the device automatically elevates the charge to a felony, according to sheriff's investigator Tom Rudenick.

All Storey had to do, authorities said, was pull alongside a vehicle, stick a hose in its gas tank, flip a switch under his dashboard to activate an auxiliary fuel pump, then sit back and wait.

Authorities said they could only speculate about whether Storey was reselling gas after they found a valve on his gas tank -- clearly not installed at the factory -- that could be used to empty his tank.

{...}It took slightly less than 2 1/2 minutes to siphon 5 gallons from a gas can into the pickup truck. Authorities said it would take 6 to 8 minutes for Storey to steal the 20 gallons needed to fill his tank.{...}

I don't know much about siphoning gas, but what I do know is that it's messy, dangerous and takes a while, which, ultimately, creates more time to get caught. This guy, apparently, looked at the downsides of siphoning, found a way around said dangers and engineered a different option. Yeah, it's still stealing, but at least, he MacGyver'ed it. Which shows he's got some potential in the engineering realm, if he ever wants to turn away from a life of crime.

{ht: buzz}

Posted by: Kathy at 08:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 415 words, total size 3 kb.

Are you perhaps, my devoted Cake Eater readers, having a wee bit of trouble understanding just how the hell JP Morgan was able to pick up Bear Stearns for the bargain basement price of $230 million (when the Bear Stearns building in Manhattan is worth about a billion itself) or thereabouts?

Go here.

Instead of "RSG Investments" insert "Bear Stearns" and you'll be good to go.

You can thank me later.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 73 words, total size 1 kb.

This was all anyone could talk about this morning at the hospital. How badly would it suck to be this person?

In what officials are calling a "tragic medical error," a surgical team removed the wrong kidney from a patient with kidney cancer last week at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, the hospital disclosed Monday.

Officials said the error occurred weeks before the surgery, when the kidney on the wrong side was identified on the patient's medical charts as cancerous. The patient, who was not identified, was left with the cancerous kidney when the healthy one was removed.

"We feel just profoundly responsible for this," said Dr. Samuel Carlson, chief medical officer for Park Nicollet Health Services, which owns Methodist Hospital.

Hospital officials said that they apologized to the patient and family, and "are working closely with them to support them in every way we can."

The hospital took the unusual step of announcing the mistake in a memo to Park Nicollet employees on Monday. "An error of this degree has, to the best of our knowledge, never happened at this hospital before," Carlson said.{...}

Discussion ranged about just how screwed this person is. How nurses usually marker up a leg that's to be amputated, and why couldn't they do the same thing with the kidney? Why wouldn't the surgeon have known they were looking at a cancerous kidney? (I fielded this one and said it might look perfectly healthy, but the cancer might actually be microscopic.) Why couldn't they just put back in the old kidney? (Because, duh, it was obviously dead because they hadn't kept it alive but were going to biopsy it instead.) If this person can now get a kidney transplant, and would be moved to the top of the list, or if they were eligible for one at all now, because of their condition? How bad must the morale at Methodist be today? But, mostly, what we discussed was just how big of a settlement Methodist is going to have to pony up.

We decided it was going to be big. In the tens of millions of dollars.

My sympathies go out to the family. But for God's sake, don't sign anything!

But there's a lesson to be learned here, and it's one that I was reminded of last week: know exactly what they're going to be doing, and if your version of what needs to be done differs in any way from theirs, make sure that difference is reconciled. I'm kind of amazed this happened in the first place. One would think the surgeon would have gone over what they were going to do with the patient, and then the patient would have said, 'Hey, you're talking about taking out the working kidney here. Let's try this again.' But, then again, if the mistake was in the chart long enough, and had been propagated enough times within the chart, well, maybe the patient thought the surgeon was taking out the correct kidney? Who knows?

This is a goof of tremendous proportions. I think the hospital is to be commended for not only going public, but to fessing up to their part in the whole debacle, despite the fact that by doing so they've clearly admitted liability. That's fairly rare in this day and age, when most hospitals would have hedged their bets. The surgeon is to be commended, as well, for voluntarily suspending their practice, while things are investigated. It's nice to know that some people have consciences.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 595 words, total size 4 kb.

...It's one thing that I can't catch myself from falling on the ice (and ripping out the knee of a brand spankin' new pair of jeans in the process. Grrrr.). It's entirely another when a robot can.

That there is a 21st Century pack mule.

Thank God, we still need humans around to tell the robots what to do, otherwise, I can't see that there'd be much of a need for us to be here.

You can find more about Big Dog here.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.

Google has bent itself over a barrel to do business in China. They're a bunch of 'yes' people when the PRC demands they do certain things to gain access to the massive Chinese market. They've felt secure in their relationship with the powers that be and have, indeed, gained access to that market not only through Google, but through investment in Baidu, the PRC approved search engine. They probably felt that they'd worked hard enough to please the people in charge that they wouldn't face the strict penalties levied on other Internet companies who haven't followed the party line.

Well, they were wrong.

Amid the recent protests and violent crackdown in Tibet, the Chinese government is closing off all media access to the region and censoring reports about Tibet inside China. That includes not just CNN, but YouTube and Google News. Both Google sites have been blocked from the Internet in China. News reports about the protests and images that appear to come from inside Tibet are available on YouTube (see the slide show embedded below—warning it shows graphic images of bodies in the streets—and a CNN report). To prevent its citizens from seeing these videos or reading about them, the Chinese government has taken down all of YouTube and Google News inside China.

{...}The question is: What will Google do to restore access to YouTube and Google News inside China? China is a big market that Google needs to be a player in. Will it voluntarily strip out all videos or news items about Tibet? Or will the Chinese government just figure out how to strip them out itself? There is a precedent here: in China you cannot find a lot of information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising on the Web, including the famous image of the lone man standing in front of the line of tanks. Most young Chinese have never seen that image.{...}

Yes, what will Google do? Their stock price is, in my humble opinion, overinflated and they need access to the Chinese market to keep the shareholders happy. They need China more than China needs them. So, will they kowtow to the PRC hacks, and allow the blocking to continue? Or will they start stripping out content related to the Tibetan uprising? It's not unlikely, at all, that they would do this. Hell, if Anonymous posts a video, a bajillion Scientologists scream in protest and the video is pulled. One can only imagine what Google would do if a big source of their lifeblood is taken away from them because someone posted a video of a newscast about what's happening in Tibet.

Google has a chance here to step up and do the right thing---and to gain hand with the Chinese government. If they're tempted to pull the videos, to get the feed, as it were, turned back on, they should think twice. What kind of a precedent would this set? Their negotiating power with the Chinese, master negotiators that they are, would be at ground zero. If, however, they refuse to do what their PRC masters have probably already asked them to do, well, they'll have the upper hand, and will have finally lived up to their "Don't Be Evil" motto. Of course, I'm simplifying the situation, because there are undoubtedly many other factors in play, the upcoming Summer Olympics being one of them, that would prevent them from such a move, but how long is Google going to stand being the PRC's bitch?

One would think that Sergey Brin, one of Google's founders, a Russian Jew who emigrated from the USSR, would have a little sympathy for the protestors in Tibet. Alas, however, I suppose with his billions at stake...

Posted by: Kathy at 10:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Apparently, St. Patrick's Day is the day for making debuts.

Only this time, my niece, Maggie, is making her Omaha World Herald Debut. Really, go and clicky on the link. She's well worth it.

According to her mother, the Cake Eater sister Christi, she really had a great time hamming it up at the photo shoot. That photo is quite representative of her personality.

I wonder, however, if I shouldn't bust them for a wee bit of dishonesty, though. The red hair does NOT come from the Irish side of their family; it comes from OUR side, the half Polish, half German side.

I do have one question, though. Do Leprechauns have pointy ears?

Posted by: Kathy at 08:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 132 words, total size 1 kb.

Making his internet debut this fine St. Patrick's Day, we have young Moses Glenn from Winterset. He's the product of regular commenters Russ from Winterset, and The Lovely Janis.

Ain't he a cutie?

Here's Moses and his Dad

And here we have Moses with his mom, who's been through rather a lot over the past week and, she tells me, has gained an appreciation for the wonder drug that is percocet.

Moses, fully realizing his internet debut is an auspicious occasion, forwarded this short note along with the pictures.

Welcome to the world Moses Glenn. I was born March 11th - 6 weeks early - because Mommy's pre-eclampsia had gotten worse and she was only going to get better if I came into the world. I weighed 3 pounds and 5 ounces and 16 1/2 inches long.

Mommy is doing much better. She got really sick and the doctors and nurses are taking really good care of her and keep telling her that it just takes time to get better. Once her blood pressure gets better she will be released from the hospital.

I am in the NICU (Neonatal- Intensive Care Unit) and I am lucky that my lungs are well developed and have not had to have helped to breathe. The doctor says I am small for my age and need to gain weight!!! I am eating through a tube right now and learning how to nurse from Mommy too. I am gaining slowly.

I am told I am feisty despite my small stature -- I like to fling my arms and legs around and actually scoot around my incubator.

I will have to gain weight, eat regularly and get control of my body temperature by myself before I can go home. My doctor says I am doing very well. Mommy and Daddy are really proud of my progress.

Thank you Kathy for posting this for us. Enjoy the pics!!!

Love --

Moses and Mommy & Daddy too!!!

Say it with me: "Awwwwwww."

Posted by: Kathy at 08:24 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 336 words, total size 3 kb.

Typical for the PRC.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese officials have declared a "people's war" of security and propaganda against support for the Dalai Lama in Tibet after riots racked the regional capital Lhasa, and some sources claimed the turmoil killed dozens.

Residents of the remote city high in the Himalayas said on Sunday that anti-riot troops controlled the streets and were closely checking Tibetan homes after protests and looting shook the heavily Buddhist region.

Two days ago Tibetan protesters, some in Buddhist monks' robes and some yelling pro-independence slogans, trashed shops, attacked banks and government offices and wielded stones and knives against police.

China has said at least 10 "innocent civilians" died, mostly in fires lit by rioters.

But an outside Tibetan source with close ties in Lhasa said that number was far too low. He cited a contact who claimed to have counted many more corpses of people killed in the riots or subsequent crackdown.

"He said there were 67 bodies in one morgue alone," the source told Reuters. "He saw it with his own eyes."

The self-proclaimed Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India has said some 30 people were killed in clashes with Chinese authorities. Beijing bans foreign reporters from freely reporting in Tibet, so the conflicting claims cannot be easily checked.

The convulsion of Tibetan anger at the Chinese presence in the region came after days of peaceful protests by monks and was a sharp blow to Beijing's preparations for the Olympic Games in August, when China wants to showcase prosperity and unity.{...}

Chinese authorities have now signaled a sweeping campaign to redouble security in the region and attack public support for the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in 1959 after that year's failed uprising.

"This grave incident of fighting, wrecking, looting and burning was meticulously planned by reactionary separatist forces here and abroad, and its goal was Tibetan independence," a Saturday meeting of senior regional and security officials announced, according to the official Tibet Daily on Sunday.

"Fight a people's war to oppose separatism and protect stability ... expose and condemn the malicious actions of these forces and expose the hideous face of the Dalai clique to broad daylight."

The meeting was attended by Tibet's hardline Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, and senior central government security officials, and it strengthens signs that China has no patience with international calls for a lenient response to the riots.

Authorities have already set an ultimatum to rioters, urging them to hand themselves in to police by Monday midnight and gain possible clemency, or face harsh punishment.

The government has mobilized officially favored Buddhist monks to denounce the protests and the Dalai Lama, the Tibet Daily reported.

"The Party's policies on religious freedom have been very well observed," one said, according to the paper.

"But monks in a few monasteries don't study the scriptures well ... and coordinate from afar with the Dalai clique." {...}

The PRC invaded Tibet in 1950. They have taken over the practice of Bhuddism there, even going so far as to put a fake Panchen Lama on the throne, much like they put "state approved" Catholic Bishops in place in Beijing. There is no freedom of the press ANYWHERE in China, let alone in Tibet, where, currently, the death count is unknowable because they won't let the information out, or the reporters in.

When is the West going to stop pretending that these are people we want to do business with? They invaded Tibet, and if the US Navy wasn't currently patrolling the Taiwanese Strait, they'd invade Taiwan, too. Make no doubts about it, ideology rules in the People's Republic, and no matter how many skyscrapers they build in Shanghai or Beijing, or how many deals they cut with companies desperate to reduce their manufacturing costs, they are still the party of Mao. They are still the party of Li Peng, who murdered God only knows how many in Tianemen Square. their ideology demands repression of anyone who rejects it.

Et tu, Google? Et tu, Yahoo? Et tu, IBM? Et tu, Mattel?

I could go on, but I think you get the gist. They are murdering people right now in Tibet. The sad thing is that this situation is hardly unique in the PRC's history: they apparently enjoy murdering people. The PRC's higher ups think no one's going to mind a little enforced repression dressed up as a "People's War." They want to portray this as an "internal matter" so the west won't get their panties in a bunch over it, and the summer olympics will go off without a hitch. They're counting on our western greed, because they believe we're more interested in money than a few dead Bhuddist monks. Just how many of them have to die before we'll realize that we don't want access to the Chinese market so badly that they think they have carte blanche to commit murder?

The only decent thing Jimmy Carter did during his administration was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan. It was wholesale slaughter in Kabul and elsewhere in that country that got him to act. And despite the fact that many hopes and dreams were slashed by bringing foreign policy into the Olympics, it was, morally speaking, the right call. The Moscow Olympics were a failure without western money to prop it up, and the USSR suffered as a result. I'm sick of rewarding the PRC with business when they repress a billion people on a daily basis. I'm sick of Google's investment and development in Baidu despite its "Don't be Evil" campaign. I hate that the CEO of Mattel had to go and publicly grovel in front of a PRC flack after criticizing Chinese production standards last summer. He had to do it, otherwise Barbies would cost considerably more than they already do. I hate that western companies that wouldn't exist without the free market in western society nonetheless, have to appease the stockholders and expand into the Chinese market, with nary a thought about how they're propping up a repressive dictatorship in their rush to make a buck. They think they can get away with this and it drives me nuts that we let them, time and again. It's time for this shit to stop.

And the only way is to teach them a lesson only the deprivation of western money and attention can provide. Boycott the Beijing Olympics. Screw 'em. They want us to think they've created a new modern, progressive, prosperous China? Well, they wouldn't be so damn prosperous if it wasn't for western money. Deny them that and they might straighten up and fly right. I don't think communism is going anywhere in China, but it's time for them to stop thinking they consistently have us bent over a barrel. They've got to learn that we can push back.

The question is, however, does anyone want to teach them that lesson, or are cheap Barbies and DVD players really more important than someone's life? Sadly, I would suspect that the answer is 'yes.'

I really wish someone would prove me wrong, though.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:31 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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