If you’ve lived in Russia, you know that just before anyone big gets charged with corruption or other high crimes, they always have a way of suffering conveniently-timed heart attacks and winding up in the hospital before the heat arrives and drags him away for some good ol’ fashioned “justice,” Putin-style. We do it here in America as well–it’s an old Mafia lawyer’s trick that Scorsese brought to the screen in that grand finale in Casino. That’s when Remo Gaggi and the other Vegas crime bosses take a break from their trial, pull off their oxygen masks, and hold a vote on whether or not to ice everyone who knows too much.
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Today’s calendar girl collection, newly minted for 2009, comes courtesy of Kerch Yard, a Ukrainian shipyard in the Eastern Crimean town of Kerch. According to our sources, “kerch” comes from an Old East Slavic word for “throat,” and the town’s name alludes to the narrow slit, eh, we meant strait, on which it has been situated for the last thousand years. But as this calendar shows, the “kerch” can allude to entirely something else. Thing is, “kerch yard” literally translates to “throat yard” or, more generally, “an area of land used for storing throats.” And gosh darn it, those Ukrainians really know how to make some really nice ones.
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I’ll talk about Gaza tomorrow, but I’ve got the day off and it’s not my idea of a good time. For now I’ll just say it turned out exactly like I said it would, but blecch, it’s not my idea of a good time and I’m not in the mood to gloat too much. So I’m going to purposely change the subject to this note I wrote myself on the way to work last week: “Supertrooper??? Not mil. @ all!! Column on misused mil. Lyrics” (more…)
Maureen Dowd: queen of snark?
The burning issue in David Denby’s new book, Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation, is that these days we’re all too snarky, and it’s imperiling Western Civilization. First, of course, he has to define snark, which takes most of the book. By the end you won’t be sure what snark is anymore, but you’ll know Denby thinks it’s bad.
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Has anyone noticed the ugly reality captured in the so-called “Miracle on the Hudson”? One of the first photos shows that first class passengers were offered first-class rafts to ensure that they’d survive in comfort, while the economy class passengers were forced out onto the metal wings to fend for themselves. Kinda sorta looks a lot like a metaphor for the financial crisis. “Miracle” our ass–this is just flat reality in 21st century America. (more…)
The real mystery of our age is this: why do all the media warmongers still have jobs, after the way they goaded us into the epic disaster we’ve found ourselves in? Back in 2001, when a panicked America foolishly handed the steering wheel to pundits like Max Boot, America was at the height of its economic and geopolitical power. What happened next was a lot like that rent-a-car prank in the first Jackass film: decades of America’s accumulated wealth and geopolitical power trashed overnight in a reckless neocon joyride. The warmongers pulled out of the lot in a mint-condition, gas-guzzling boat, cheerfully assuring America that everything would turn out fine. Cut to the slapstick punch line: Boot pushing the remains of the totaled car back onto the lot. Only instead of apologizing like the Jackass pranksters, Boot cheerfully tells America, “You see, I told you it would turn out great! Now give me your next-best car; I’d like to take it out for a spin…” (more…)
