Cafferty hits a home run

Jack Cafferty nails it in his latest column for CNN. It's so good I've taken the liberty of reproducing it here. Spread this one around - it deserves a wide audience.

I think this time, it's different. I have this uneasy feeling our country is in the process of changing forever, and not necessarily for the better -- unless our perspective changes with it.

I have kicked around longer than most people: I'm 66 years old. I remember well the '50s and early '60s, which were times of unbridled enthusiasm, prosperity and opportunity.

The American dream was a job, a house, a car. A modest, affordable house and a car that was most likely a Chevrolet, Ford or Plymouth.

People weren't in debt buying things they couldn't afford, and neither was the government. There were recessions along the way -- relatively mild downturns of short duration -- but nothing like this feels like it's going to be.

The interest on the national debt will approach $500 billion a year this year or next. Our country is sinking into the quicksand of insolvency as surely as the victims of subprime mortgages who have lost their jobs and their houses and watched their savings evaporate in the stock market decline.

The current national debt is soaring past $12 trillion. The costs of the stimulus packages and bailouts (and stimulus package is just another word for bailout) are being tacked on and passed on because they are being paid for with money we don't have.

We are staring at unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security in the tens of trillions of dollars. Where's that money going to come from? We have to either raise taxes or cut benefits. There are no other options.

The baby boomers are starting to retire and will consume an ever larger share of these entitlement programs. They will also age in sufficient numbers to drive the political agenda for the foreseeable future. Think they're going to want less Social Security and less Medicare? Think again.

The generation coming along behind them that will be asked to pay for all this can't. There are not enough good jobs left in this country to pay those kinds of bills.

At the end of the day, we are going to have to settle for less. Less money, smaller houses, smaller cars and smaller dreams.

This is not your father's country anymore. And we had better all start getting used to it.

On the bright side, our history shows that times of shared national sacrifice have resulted in our greatest national achievements. It's been a very long time since we have been called upon to make any kind of serious sacrifice. We were overdue until one day in September, when Lehman Brothers collapsed. We're not overdue anymore.

Cafferty also had a very good perspective on the recently-passed stimulus bill. Go read.

Peter

How to get fired - from the South Pole!

It is to laugh . . . According to the Denver Westword:

Jell-O wrestling isn't all that unusual. A staple of biker bars and fraternity parties everywhere, it typically involves wiggling, jiggling and giggling. But at the bottom of the world, on the McMurdo ice station, Jell-O wrestling recently became a firing offense — at least for one employee of Centennial-based Raytheon Polar Services Company, which holds the ten-year contract to staff the United States Antarctic Program.

Last week, the unnamed man was dismissed after employees of the U.S. Inspector General's office, conducting an audit of Antarctica's McMurdo Station, discovered the aftermath of a Jell-O wrestling party. According to news reports, the employee defended himself, saying "No one was injured...no equipment was abused or damaged, no one complained to HR, there was no inappropriate behavior, clothing or nudity."

Raytheon Polar Services spokeswoman Valerie Carroll wouldn't confirm the details but said the incident was only "part of the reason" the employee lost his job.

The story is just one of a series of odd tales to float up from Antarctica over the years: many involve binge drinking in what is a very isolated place, especially during the long, dark months of March through October, when only about 150-200 people live at McMurdo. And last June, a story hit the wires about a shipment of 16,500 condoms that was delivered to McMurdo just before the dark winter began.

"All kinds of people work there. All kinds of activities take place. There are lots of traditions, lots of fun things," Carroll says. Many of them are unusual, but she wishes the scandalous ones hadn't overshadowed some of the others. For instance, there's an art festival, a music festival (called IceStock), and the "Race Around the World," in which people run around the South Pole (every way you look is north). There's also a big bash every Halloween at which people dress in costumes they've brought along.

There's more at the link.

McMurdo sounds more and more interesting! I reported about its condom shipment last year, as some of you may recall. Now, Jell-O wrestling? What next? Frozen pajama parties?



Peter

OK, that's big!

From Thailand we hear of the biggest freshwater fish ever to be caught with a rod.

It took 90 minutes to land, 13 men to heave it out of the water... and weighed 55 stone [770 pounds or 350 kilograms] when they finally got it to the scales.

So it's little wonder that when Ian Welch first hooked the record stingray, it almost pulled him into the river.

Mr Welch, who weighs 11½ stone [161 pounds or 73 kilograms], said: 'It dragged me across the boat and would have pulled me in, had my colleague not grabbed my trousers.'

The angler, from Aldershot, Hampshire, was fishing in Thailand when he landed the ray, which is the biggest freshwater fish to be caught with a rod. It turned out to be female - and pregnant.




The biologist was helping with a stingray tagging programme on the Maeklong River, when he hooked the fish.

'It buried itself on the bottom. I tried with every ounce of power but it just would not budge. After half an hour my arms began shaking and after an hour my legs went.

'Another 30 minutes went by and then I put a glove on and physically pulled the line with gritted teeth.'

Once the stingray was off the bottom, it was relatively easy to lift it 30ft to the surface, said Mr Welch, 45.

'As soon as we saw it there was just silence because everyone was just in awe of this thing.'

Eventually the group towed the ray to the bank, put it in a paddling pool, tagged it and took DNA, before releasing it.

The giant freshwater ray is listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

This one, 7ft long and wide, with a tail of 10ft, had its venomous barb wrapped in cloth on the bank.

Mr Welch said: 'I was exhausted afterwards. I did very little for the rest of the day - and just had a cold beer.'

I'd imagine it was worth several beers!

Peter

Carnival time in Rio

It looks like the pre-lenten Carnival in Rio was its usual flashy, showy self. I'd love to attend the celebrations one day, to see what they're like in person.

The Daily Mail reports:

Brazil's Carnival added a mature twist to its symbolic parade today by giving two women in their 40s a chance to dance at the head of their samba parades.

Some of Brazil's most beautiful women battle it out each year to become their school's drum queen in the carnival renowned for being a symbol for youth, beauty and sex.




Drum queens lead their parades by furiously dancing samba in little more than glittery body paint, an enormous headdress and tall heels.




The role usually goes to young starlets or beautiful women plucked from the downtrodden areas where the samba schools are based.




But two leading samba schools taking part in last night's final night of the top-tier parades surprised Brazilians by choosing women aged 46 and 44 - though one is a former model and the other was once a Playboy cover girl.

'It's a huge change,' Luiza Brunet, 46, said as she prepared for her showcase role in the Imperatiz samba school's parade.




'It shows that women who are more mature are gaining space in a country with so much machismo, where we give more value to youth and beauty.'




Psychologist Enaile Ortiz - 48 - agreed and said she would be helping to break the impression that youth equated to beauty.

'This shows you can be in a beautiful state, no matter what stage of life you are in,' she said.

Looking at those ladies, I couldn't agree more!



Peter

Tamil Tigers' last gasp?

I was interested to read of the air raid on Colombo, Sri Lanka, last Friday by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a terrorist movement known colloquially as the Tamil Tigers.

The Tigers have always been a somewhat enigmatic movement. They've claimed to represent the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, allegedly 'defending' them against the 'oppression' of the Sinhalese majority: but it's been documented on numerous occasions that they've terrorized their own community when voluntary support wasn't forthcoming swiftly enough for their liking. They've claimed to be apolitical apart from their Tamil nationalist objectives, but they display distinct Communist leanings in much of their propaganda. They've claimed to be engaged in a formal, legitimate war against the Sri Lankan government, but have adopted terrorist methods, including suicide bombings and other atrocities that have no place in legitimate warfare.

What's set the Tigers apart from other terrorist movements is that their activities have gone far beyond the typical land-based tactics most commonly encountered. They occupied a large swath of northern Sri Lanka for some years, and set up their own government there. They set up a sea-borne guerrilla force, using fast small craft, which patrolled 'their' coastline, sank a number of civilian cargo vessels, and caused serious damage and casualties to the small Sri Lankan Navy.




Finally, and uniquely for any terrorist movement, they established an air wing. The Air Tigers have admittedly never been well-equipped, but their activities have caused severe embarrassment to the Sri Lankan government, which has on occasion seemed powerless to stop their pinprick attacks. They smuggled an unknown number of Zlin Z-143 civilian light aircraft into the country, similar to that shown below.




Once they'd assembled them, they camouflaged them and adapted them to carry a few light bombs, as shown in the diagram below.




The Air Tigers then used them to attack Sri Lankan military and government installations. Their first operation was in March 2007, when two aircraft bombed the air force base at Katanayake, causing little damage, but panicking passengers at the nearby international airport and scoring a public relations coup. Both aircraft returned safely to their 'base' in the northern Sri Lankan jungle. Eight more operations followed at infrequent intervals, culminating in their tenth (and probably last) operation on Friday last week.

Both attacking aircraft were brought down. One crashed into the tax office building in Colombo, and the other (shown below) was shot down near the international airport, with its dead pilot and bombs still aboard.






Indian TV showed this clip of the attack, filmed using night vision cameras.

It's likely that this was a 'suicide mission'. The Tigers are now penned up in an area of less than 30 square miles in northern Sri Lanka, having lost virtually all their territory to a sustained government offensive. I'd speculate that since they knew their planes were doomed to be captured or destroyed on the ground, their commanders asked - or ordered - their pilots to undertake this last mission.

Terrorists they may be, and their atrocities over the years have put the Tigers beyond the pale of civilized conduct: but the same can be said for many of the operations of the Sri Lankan government against them, which have allegedly caused appalling civilian casualties. This sad and sorry tale of two warring communities looks like it'll soon be over - at least in its present form, although I'll bet that the Tigers will turn to guerrilla warfare, infiltrating terrorists from sympathetic Tamil areas in southern India.

Despite the terrorist nature of their organization, one has to admire the courage in the face of ultimately-certain death displayed by the Air Tiger pilots, in all their previous operations and again last week. They've flown in the face of an air force equipped with supersonic strike aircraft carrying air-to-air missiles, and over ground forces heavily armed with anti-aircraft weapons (although, admittedly, Sri Lanka has never had a modern radar tracking and early-warning system). To do that - and to achieve even the limited success they did - in small, light utility aircraft never designed to carry weapons or fight at all, is testimony to their dedication.

Peter

Fun - or insane?

I'm trying to decide whether this would be fun, or wrench my back so far out of whack that I'd need medical care when I finally came to a standstill!

Of course, if the line broke halfway through the first stroke, I daresay I'd set a new rubber-band-powered distance record!



Peter

Oh, the poor dear!

I note with interest that a Satanist inmate is suing Yellowstone County in Montana.

A Billings man in prison for drug possession has filed a $10 million federal lawsuit against Yellowstone County for alleged civil-rights violations, including interference with his satanic religious practices.

Jason Paul Indreland claims in the U.S. District Court lawsuit that county jail staff took from him a religious medallion, denied him access to religious material and ridiculed and punished him for his religious beliefs.

. . .

Indreland said he has been a practicing Satanist for the past decade and the confiscated medallion was a "protective symbol" in his religion. The lawsuit claims jail staff refused to return the medallion or allow Indreland access to a "Satanic Bible or Book of Satanic Rituals."

Indreland, 35, is incarcerated at Montana State Prison for a term of five years, with two years suspended, for felony drug possession. Indreland was convicted of the crime after Billings police found him with 15 grams of methamphetamine in March 2007.

Indreland has previous felony convictions in Yellowstone and Stillwater counties for bad checks and theft.

. . .

... Indreland named numerous members of the jail staff he alleges participated in violating his civil rights. Among the claims, Indreland alleges jail staff placed "Christian natured greeting cards under (his) cell door describing how he was going to undertake a huge change in his life and how Jesus was ready to save and accept him."

The lawsuit seeks $3 million for alleged civil-rights violations, $2 million for "the deprivation of his rights and injuries both mental and physical," and $5 million in punitive damages.

You'll pardon me if I don't have much sympathy for poor, dear Mr. Indreland. In my time as a prison chaplain, I ran into several self-proclaimed Satanists. They were distinctly poor specimens of the human race, as I recall. The other prisoners seemed to think so, too.

One of them was a lot of fun. I wrote about him in my as-yet-unpublished memoir of prison ministry, and I thought you might enjoy his story almost as much as I did.

One of the funnier incidents happened in another prison several years ago, and involved a self-proclaimed Satanist and ‘warlock’. He tried to wheedle me into arranging a number of special privileges for him. I refused, of course - there were no circumstances under which I could justify them. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and tried threats. Those didn’t work either. (When you’ve been threatened by experts you get used to it very quickly - and he was no expert!) Frustrated, he finally promised he was going to see to it that I was ‘sorted out’, which I took to mean that he would arrange for some inmates to assault me when I was next on the compound. I discussed the threat with the authorities, who tightened up surveillance, and we waited.

It didn’t take long for word to reach us through informers. He’d bragged to others on the compound that he’d cast a ‘death spell’ upon me. He confidently prophesied that I’d be dead within thirty days. I grinned, and carried on as normal. As time passed, his predictions grew louder and somewhat more desperate, as I continued to portray the picture of good health whenever I came to the prison. (I took care to walk around openly to demonstrate the fact.) As the deadline approached, he became frantic, and tried to bribe a prison gang to attack me. Unfortunately for him, gang leaders knew all too well that visiting Chaplains, such as myself, were their lifeline in the event of family problems. Some of them had needed such assistance in the past. They passed the word that any attack on any visiting Chaplain would meet with their vigorous and extreme displeasure. The inmates got the message loud and clear. The attempt fizzled, the deadline passed, and I was still alive.

This curse-casting cretin now had problems of his own. Not only had his credibility been shattered by my selfish refusal to fall down dead, but certain over-credulous inmates had taken his boasting seriously. They had apparently paid him considerable sums to cast ‘death spells’ on other convicts and staff, whom they regarded as enemies. Since his curse against me hadn’t worked, they were now wondering whether their investment had been well-advised. Sure enough, the deadline for those deaths also passed without so much as a head cold amongst his intended victims. He ended up requesting protective custody in the Hole, and was eventually transferred to another institution. There were too many angry inmates wanting their money back for him to dare show his face on the compound ever again.

(I trust the Lord will forgive my less-than-pastoral pleasure at his predicament . . . )

Ah, memories . . .



Peter

Foot-feeding fishes forbidden in Florida

I'm amused to see that Florida has banned the use of fish for pedicures.

My initial reaction was "Huh?" But, believe it or not, there seems to be a growing fad to have your tootsies nibbled by fishies to remove dead skin - at a price. I'm used to getting a pedicure (since my spinal injury, it's hard for me to reach my feet to do it myself). However, the price quoted in this video would buy me two full conventional pedicures, so I'm not tempted to try the piscatorial version, thank you very much!

I have to admit to laughing as I read Florida's reason for banning the procedure. Would you believe it's because "there's no way to disinfect a pool of fish in between uses"? Did anyone ask the fish how they felt about being sanitized?

Personally, having had the misfortune to be around several dozen pairs of rather aromatic tootsies during my military service, I'd think the fish in Florida will be more relieved to be free of this burden than anyone else! Some of those feet would have gagged a maggot . . .

Peter

Will the VH-71 Kestrel finally be shot down?

I've written before about the massive financial boondoggle that is the VH-71 Kestrel program to produce a new Presidential helicopter.




At last comes some potentially good news. According to CNN:

President Obama said Monday he’s pretty happy with helicopter he has — though the new commander-in-chief joked he's never had one to compare it to.

During a fiscal summit at the White House Monday, Arizona Sen. John McCain — Obama's former rival for the White House — pressed the new president on the Defense Department's plan to overhaul the fleet of 28 Marine One helicopters, a process that began early in the Bush administration.

The price tag for the new helicopters has been estimated at over $11 billion, more than the cost of Air Force One — a cost that Obama said appeared unnecessary.

"The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me," Obama responded to laughter. "Of course, I've never had a helicopter before.

"You know? Maybe — maybe I've been deprived and i didn't know it. But I think it is a — an example of the procurement process gone amok and we're going to have to fix it."

Hear, hear, Mr. President! The sooner this colossal waste of taxpayer's money is grounded for good, the better!

Peter

The Beatles - highly strung?

I'm amused to discover a new blog, dedicated to playing the entire repertoire of The Beatles - on the ukulele!

Initially I was sceptical. I mean, most of the ukulele players I've heard have been enthusiastic amateur musicians - with emphasis on the enthusiasm, double emphasis on the amateur, and none on the musician! Nevertheless, I went to The Beatles Complete On Ukulele, read the articles, and listened to some of their efforts. I have to admit, I'm reluctantly impressed! They're not bad at all.

Intrigued, I looked further. I found that on YouTube, there are lots of videos of Beatles songs played on the ukulele. Most are abominable, but this one, a rendition of George Harrison's 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', is spectacularly good. I just had to include it here.

Kudos to the musician, and I'll be looking for more of his work.

Peter

Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras?

In much of Latin Europe and America, tomorrow is 'Mardi Gras' or 'Fat Tuesday', the last day to celebrate and indulge to excess before the season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. However, tomorrow is known as Shrove Tuesday in England and many of its formercolonies. The term comes from the verb 'to shrive', meaning to hear the confession of a sinner, impose penance and pronounce absolution. Believers in England were expected to go to confession by not later than Shrove Tuesday, to be spiritually cleansed of sin prior to the forty days of Lent, a period of repentance, fasting and abstinence that precedes the Easter celebrations.




It's an old English custom to eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, which is also known as 'Pancake Day' for that reason. Why and how this arose, I'm not sure, but it's fun! I can recall my mother cooking up heaped piles of thin, crepe-like pancakes, each sprinkled with cinnamon powder and castor sugar, then dribbled with lemon juice (from cut lemons, none of this plastic-bottle nonsense!), then rolled into a cylinder to be eaten by the dozen. Alternatives were pancakes with fruit and cream. Oooh, the stomach-aches I had as a child on Shrove Tuesday! (But they were worth it!)




English newspapers are publishing pancake recipes right now, and households all over the country will be preparing them for dinner tomorrow. They'll be topped with savory meat dressings, or lemon, or treacle, or anything else that takes the family's fancy. My mouth's watering at the memories, and part of me is wishing I could be there! I guess I'll have to make my own, to celebrate. Being in Bayou country, I wonder whether crawfish pancakes are an option?




One scientist in England has come up with the perfect recipe, in true laboratory tradition.

With Shrove Tuesday tomorrow it was perhaps inevitable that an eager scientist would apply their skills to creating the perfect pancake.

Maths expert Dr Ruth Fairclough stepped up to the challenge, unveiling a complex algebra formula to help chefs nail the dish on the day.

The 34-year-old senior lecturer of mathematics and statistics worked out the food formula because her two daughters loved eating pancakes so much.

Dr Ruth, who teaches at Wolverhampton University found that
100 - [10L - 7F + C(k - C) + T(m - T)]/(S - E) created the tastiest snack.

In the complex formula L represents the number of lumps in the batter and C equals its consistency.

The letter F stands for the flipping score, k is the ideal consistency and T is the temperature of the pan.

Ideal temp of pan is represented by m, S is the length of time the batter stands before cooking and E is the length of time the cooked pancake sits before being eaten.

The closer to 100 the result is - the better the pancake.

Dr Ruth reckons the frying pan's temperature is one of the most important parts, together with the preparation of the tasty batter.

She said: 'The first thing to do is that you must get the pan temperature exactly right. When the oil starts lightly smoking you need to pour the mixture in.

The next thing is that you have to get the consistency of the mix spot on - it can't be too runny as if it is the pancake just falls to bits. Saying that, it can't have any lumps in it either.

'You can check it's right by lifting up a spoon and the mixture should just fall lightly off it.

'You should let the mix stand for 20 minutes so the flour has time to absorb into the milk.

'Make sure you have a medium sized pan, too big and it could be really hard to flip it.

'The pancake should be served piping hot off the pan with sugar and lemon.'

Yum! I'm getting hungry just reading that.




Two chefs in England have made me even hungrier by building the world's tallest stack of pancakes, to claim a place in the Guinness Book Of World Records.

Sean McGinlay and Natalie King of Glasgow's Hilton Grosvenor hotel measured their pancake tower at 29.5 inches (75cm) - beating the current title by 0.4in.

The chefs mixed about 100 eggs, more than 17 pints of milk, 11lbs of flour and 6.6lbs of butter for the challenge, a hotel spokeswoman said.

The hotel's general manager Stuart Nelson said: 'It was a bit shaky towards the end but somehow we managed to pull it off.

'Special thanks must go to Sean McGinlay and the kitchen team, who have spent a great deal of time this week perfecting their pancake recipes and stacking techniques.'

According to Guinness World Records, the current official record stands at 29.1in (74cm), achieved in Slovenia in August 2008.

That 672-pancake stack took 22 hours to build.

Dammit, now my mouth's watering fit to flood the garden! Just wait until my blog posts are done tonight. Pancakes, here I come!






Peter

Australian beer commercials

I have to admit to a liking for Aussie humor - particularly as expressed in their beer commercials. I've found a couple of new ones since the last time I posted some. Here they are, preceded by two old favorites for those who may have missed them the first time around.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #168

Today's Doofus award is again a collective one, to the authorities responsible for prisons and prisoners in Greece.

Two of Greece's most wanted men have staged a daring helicopter escape from Athens' highest-security prison - for the second time in three years.

Serial armed robber and kidnapper Vassilis Paleokostas and his Albanian sidekick Alket Rizai were days away from trial for their 2006 escape.

They fled Korydallos prison after a helicopter landed on the jail's roof and threw them a rope ladder.

The aircraft was reportedly later found abandoned by a main highway.

The road leads towards Greece's central mountain range, an area where Paleokostas, 42, was able to hide with impunity during previous years, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant, in Athens.

Our correspondent says the breakout is a damning indictment of Greece's prison system.

Three years ago both men managed to escape when a hijacked helicopter landed in Korydallos' central yard at exercise time.

On that occasion, the guards failed to react, because they thought it was a visit by prison inspectors.

You know, once is bad enough - but twice? Using the same technique? From the same prison???

Hadn't the authorities and guards learned anything???

Sheesh!

Peter

On this day: February 23rd, 1945

Today is a hallowed date in the history of the US Marine Corps. On February 23rd, 1945, the US flag was raised atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima by a group of Marines, to be immortalized on film by Joe Rosenthal in a photograph he titled Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima.




It won the Pulitzer Prize, and would become the model for the USMC War Memorial in Washington DC.




It wasn't the first flag to be raised on Mount Suribachi. The first was too small to be readily visible, and was replaced by a second, larger flag. Rosenthal photographed the second flag-raising. This later became the subject of controversy. For those interested, details may be found here.

Be that as it may, the battle for Iwo Jima remains one of the toughest, bloodiest, and most hard-fought engagements of the Second World War. Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz later wrote of the US Marines' performance there: "Uncommon valor was a common virtue."

As he watched the flag rise above Mount Suribachi, the Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, remarked to USMC General Holland 'Howlin' Mad' Smith: "Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years."

For the sake of the United States, let's hope he was right!

Peter

The Oscars, the credit crunch, and reality

I'm cynically amused to read how Hollywood went about preparing for the Oscars.

The scene: a party at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard, three days before the Oscars.

Despite the fact the world is in financial meltdown - and, as one film producer shouted in my ear: 'There are middleclass Americans living in their cars!' - the place is packed.

Cristal champagne is being downed as though there's no tomorrow. It's a good job most of the people here are size zero or I'd never have squeezed my way to the bar.

. . .

I ask various women whether the recession has been affecting their lifestyle. 'Of course! It's scary,' says one. 'I now only wear vintage.' You mean your own, old clothes, or you buy vintage? 'Um, oh, I buy it.'

She asks whether I've heard of fashion store H Lorenzo, located in the paparazzi vortex of Robertson Boulevard.

'You so have to go there! It's solar-powered, with reclaimed cabinets, totally green labels and a paperless bathroom. Seriously, Victoria Beckham loves it.'

The big new movement here is called 'spiritual consumption' - i.e., it's still OK to go shopping as long as what you buy has a green angle.

On Thursday afternoon, I go to a party at model Normandie Keith's mansion in Beverly Hills where I'm able to have eyelash extensions, a psychic reading, learn yoga courtesy of Maya Fiennes - the sister-in-law of actors Joseph and Ralph - and drink disgusting spirulina juice, all in the one place.

So I ask a screenwriting friend who is considering buying a meditation stool: are the women of Beverly Hills letting it all hang out, foregoing the grooming just a bit?

I had, earlier that day, been able to get a last-minute appointment at the legendary Frederic Fekkai hair salon with no problem. 'But have you tried to get Botox for your armpits, or a colonic to lose weight in time for Sunday's ceremony?' my friend says. 'You won't get either for love nor money. These are basics we won't give up without a fight.' Hollywood women, it seems, are finding it hard to get to grips with anything approaching restraint.

The Heath Ledger bash segued into one hosted by Uma Thurman, and I overheard a woman asking a waiter how long a bottle of champagne had been open 'because I can't drink it if it's been more than five minutes'.

At the lobster lunch hosted by Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon on Friday at hot new restaurant Cecconi's (with attendees including Elton John and actress Debra Messing), the women who could be bothered to delve into their goody bag were disappointed to find it contained only a $100 voucher, to be spent, of course, at Jimmy Choo. 'Do you want it?' one young underwear designer asked me ungratefully. 'I only wear Louboutins.' It was all a little schizophrenic.

There was a lot of talk the week before about how the big bashes were positively meagre this awards season, but this was largely propaganda. Friday night's Mont Blanc dinner in aid of Unicef was lavish in the extreme. Vanity Fair's post- Oscars bash was billed as an intimate affair, but it was still held at hot hotel Sunset Towers, with - wait for it - 'recycled décor', which makes standing around drinking champagne OK, then.

The general feeling in town is that the recession will just go away. 'People here are blind,' my movie producer friend told me. 'They believe that, as in the Thirties, the industry is immune.' Unfortunately, it's not. The box office boost usually expected from an Oscar nomination has not materialised this year: Warner reported a 9 per cent fall in revenue, Fox a 30 per cent drop. I wandered in and out of the stores on Rodeo Drive, and it was quiet, to say the least. Barneys was like a mausoleum.

Many spring-summer collections already have 30 per cent off, and stores including Ghost, Sergio Rossi, Agnes B and the long-established Tracey Ross boutique have closed down. The only fashion brands bucking the trend are those with green credentials, such as Santa Monica-based TOMS shoes which, for every pair sold, donates a pair to a child in the developing world.

. . .

... all the big brands were out in force last week, taking over suites at hotels including the Peninsula, the London and the Thompson, displaying their wares in the hope the key stylists (Jessica Diehl who dresses Kate Winslet, Jennifer Rade who styles Angelina Jolie, and Cristina Ehrlich who dresses Penelope Cruz) would choose them.

I ask a fashion PR whether she has ever heard of a fashion brand paying a star to wear its clothes?

'Abso-f***ing-lutely!' she says. 'This is the industry's shop window to the world. It's too important to leave to chance - now more than ever.' While the 92,000 Swarovski crystals sewn on to the blue curtains at the Kodak Theatre (which played host to the Oscars) were over the top, and the countless freebies laid out for the presenters and nominees afterwards might seem so, too, let's just be glad the Academy decided not to skimp on the cost of flying the entire cast of Slumdog Millionaire to the ceremony.

Maybe the sight of those children who have nothing will finally bring La-La Land to its senses.

I read this, and I shake my head in bewilderment. How is it possible for the entertainment glitterati to be so divorced from the reality that is America today? And then I think . . . no, wait a minute, it does make sense. They never see anyone outside their own privileged circle. The sets for movies, TV sitcoms and dramas are almost always upscale, showing families and young people living in luxury they could never afford on a regular, real-world salary. Even their acting environments - not to mention the scripts! - don't mimic reality: so how would these people ever learn of it?

No wonder I haven't set foot inside a cinema for over twenty years . . .

Peter

Ladies, I need your help on this!

I'd appreciate the help of my lady readers. I was somewhat taken aback to read an article in the Daily Mail today. Here's an excerpt:

We run our own companies - some of us run entire countries. We work and raise families, we have fun, we have fabulous frocks. So why is it, after a century of increasing affluence, influence and freedom, women have never loved each other less? Whatever happened to the sisterhood?

Any historian would have imagined that after a hundred years of fighting side-by-side and winning victory after victory, women would be the new Spartans - fearless, fearsome and, above all, locked shield to shield, Jimmy Choo to Jimmy Choo, totally loyal to our sisters who fought the good fight with us.

But something very strange happened. As we became more successful, we also grew more suspicious, more envious, more downright nasty to other women.

A new book examines that gruesome trend of girl-on-girl nastiness. Friend Or Frenemy? by Andrea Lavinthal and Jessica Rozler is billed as a guide to 'the friends you need and the ones you don't'. The ones you don't being 'frenemies' - the friends who are enemies in disguise.

. . .

... the point of their new book is to help us to reconnect with real friendship, not cyber-fakes, and to differentiate between the true girlfriend and the frenemy who half wants you to succeed but mostly loves it when you fail - at men, fashion or career.

She's the kind of woman who, while affecting deep concern, is the mistress of undermining. She is fond of saying things along the lines of: 'You look tired,' 'You're going to eat all that?' 'Your ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend is soooooo pretty.'

Lavinthal and Rozler point out that in a world where we often live miles apart from our real families and start our own at a later age than our parents did, friends are the new 'framily'. They conclude: 'Good friends are like orgasms - you're lucky enough to have one and really lucky if you have multiple ones.'

. . .

But then there's the flip side, as revealed in another new book, Player HateHer by Tamara A. Johnson-George and Katrina R. Chambers.

The title is a pun on the term 'player hater' which was used in the Sixties to describe the out-and-out jealousy aimed at people who were successful, who were 'players', whether it was as the grade A student or someone who excelled at sport.

Johnson-George and Chambers use their term to describe women who hate instead of embracing one another. It is a phenomenon that every working woman will recognise. Women can be fantastic friends outside the office, but put them in the workplace and they become the personification of conceit, deceit and downright nastiness.

. . .

Without even realising it, women slip into Player HateHer mode. And I defy anyone reading this to say they have not been guilty of this kind of scrutiny of other women. A Player HateHer is a woman who 'unnecessarily displays a negative attitude towards another woman for trivial reasons'. Why? Because they're jealous, insecure and intimidated.

The authors point out that Player HateHers don't treat men the same way. In the workplace, intelligent, welleducated, successful females behave with all the instincts of cavewomen. Unless you connive and plot to secure the protection, if not affection, of the strongest male (usually the boss), you lose out to a more attractive, more cunning woman.

There's a lot more at the link.

I've always been aware that some women can be really nasty in the workplace, but as a male, I've not seen it in the 'in-your-face' way that these authors seem to describe. I actively tried to recruit women when I was a team manager in the computer industry, because I found them more hard-working and flexible than men in many respects. I still hold that view for such functions. I certainly never encountered such problems with my team - or, at least, I didn't detect them as the team manager. They may have been going on under the surface, and I might have been blind to them.

Ladies, are things really as bad as these authors make them out to be? I'd be grateful if you'd please read the whole article, then share your thoughts with us in Comments. I think we'd all learn something.

Thanks in advance.

Peter

La Diablada

This weekend sees the annual festival of La Diablada, or the Devil's Carnival, in Oruro, Bolivia.




According to Whatsonwhen.com:

Every spring, Oruro goes into carnival mode. The costumes on show are phenomenal and include anything from llama herders to Amazonian Indians sporting feathered head-dresses. The combination of colour, outlandish masks, music, dance and fireworks is bound to leave you wide-eyed.




One of the highlights are the devil dancers, the tradition of which derives from a peculiar kind of devil worship. Oruro is a mining town and the locals, spending so much time underground, decided to adopt a god of the underworld. Christian tradition dictates that this must be the devil and the Oruro faithful thus adopted Satan, or Supay, as their god. They would perform sacrifices to the devil on a regular basis to ensure their safety in the mines and the devil dancing in the carnival derives from their belief in Satan as their protector underground.




These days, the procession tends to focus more on the patron saint of mining, the Virgen del Sovacón and Pachamama (Mother Earth) than the devil, but devil dances are still an important part of the proceedings. Supay and his wife Supay China are closely followed by a multitude of he-devils and she-devils. Next come a series of animal characters, common to the area during the Middle Ages, including snarling bears, graceful condors and pumas.




The carnival draws to an end on the Monday, known otherwise as the Día del diablo y del moreno. Revellers gather in the town square for a thunderous exchange of water bombs. Gringos beware!




All things come to an end with the ceremonies of Ch'alla. Liquid, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, is ceremoniously poured onto the ground, back to Mother Nature where it came from. That is, if you don't mind wasting your drink!

It sounds very interesting - and it reminds me of similar 'mix-ups' when Christianity came to Africa, competing with the native Animist religions. There were many instances where a Christian icon, or the Devil, would be adopted by the locals in exchange for one of their own gods or ancestors, so that the two religions would become intermingled. It goes on to this day in Africa, where some 'churches' will worship Jesus Christ as the Son of God, but simultaneously offer animal sacrifices to the spirits of their ancestors. Strange mixture.

The video clip below shows La Diablada in full swing.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #167

Sometimes an individual is so stupid, so Doofy, that it's almost impossible to credit.

Meet today's Doofus.

Joshua Kay, already sitting behind bars for, among other things, impersonating a police officer, allegedly didn't let his current address spoil a ruse.

Last week, Kay let some of his fellow inmates at the Ferris Huber Center in on a little secret: He is actually an undercover sheriff's deputy working a 30-day "internal affairs" assignment, investigating other deputies at the center, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Dane County Circuit Court.

Kay, 30, of Madison, now finds himself charged once again with impersonating a police officer after one of Kay's confidants ignored his alleged request to "keep it quiet."

According to the complaint, on Feb. 10 Deputy Brian Matzke was interviewing inmate Brent Fowler, who asked Matzke whether he knew that "there is a deputy in our wing."

Fowler described what Kay allegedly said about his undercover assignment.

Other inmates also told investigators that Kay has been claiming to be a deputy working undercover, according to the criminal complaint.

Kay, a former security guard, is serving an eight-month jail sentence for three misdemeanors.

Among them is a 2007 conviction for impersonating a police officer, which happened when Kay turned on flashing red lights and a siren on his Honda Civic and tried to stop a speeding car on the Beltline.

That car, unfortunately for Kay, was driven by an off-duty police officer from Arena.

It's bad enough to impersonate a police officer . . . but to tell other prison inmates that you're one?

I'm a former prison chaplain, amongst other things. Allow me to assure you, dear reader, that there are inmates behind prison walls who spend their time looking with longing for police informers, undercover cops, and suchlike among the inmate population. There's nothing they'd like more than to beat them up, rape them, murder them, and probably a few other things besides.

And this doofus goes around telling other inmates he's an undercover cop????

Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .

Peter

Someone has more money than sense!

I'm astonished to read of the amount paid for the last bag of candies from a Woolworths store in England. The Woolworths chain has just gone into bankruptcy.

The 'last' bag of Woolworths pic 'n' mix was sold for more than £14,500 on eBay today.

The souvenir from the collapsed retail chain had received 115 bids ahead of today's sale deadline.

The 800g pic 'n' mix bag contains fizzy cola bottles, rhubarb & custards, strawberry bon bons, Turkish delight, white mice, pineapple cubes, and many other favourite sweets.




Ed Adams, a Woolies store manager, snapped up the collector's item just before his shop closed for the last time.

He auctioned the sweets to raise funds for Retail Trust, a charity for retail industry workers.

Mr Adams, who managed the Petts Wood branch in Kent, said: 'I am really proud and excited to see such an enormous sum has been raised for the last bag of pic 'n' mix.

'Retail Trust is a fantastic organisation that has helped so many people like me. Being made redundant in the current climate was hard to take and knowing that there is help out there gives you comfort in these pressing times.'

An eBay spokesman said they were working with the charity to 'finalise payment' from the winning bidder.

Nigel Rothband, Retail Trust chief executive, said: 'It's taken us by surprise. It's very exciting and much more than we were expecting.'

The bag has been officially certified by Woolworths' administrators, Deloitte, as the last one.

A spokesman said: 'The administrators of Woolworths PLC have consented to the sale of this item for the benefit of Retail Trust.

'They are pleased to be supporting this worthwhile cause and hope the proceeds will make a difference to those workers helped by the charity.'

Charity or not, the mind boggles. To pay US $21,000 for a half-pound bag of mixed candies??? That's not smart or charitable - that's just plain obscene!

Oh, well. I hope the buyer enjoys every mouthful. At about $500 per candy, he'd better!

Peter

Just what a frat party needs . . .

How have we managed to survive for so long without so essential an invention?




From the sales blurb: "Armed with the Alcohol Shot Gun, you can re-enact the most memorable movie scenes from 'Dirty Harry' to 'Matrix'. 'Do you feel lucky, sucker?' is the only question. Pour in an ounce of your favorite drink into the cartridge, cock the trigger, point and shoot."

Uh-huh.

Just think of the quick-draw tournaments frat parties can hold with this thing! The winner may not be he who gets his 'shot' off first - it might be the one who can most accurately catch the thing in his mouth! Talk about being 'loaded'!

One word of warning, though. If you're in one of the more heavily armed regions of the country, it might be a really, really bad idea to sneak up behind a guest and tell him you're going to 'shoot' him with this toy. He might turn around shooting something of his own . . . and I don't mean loaded with alcohol!

Peter