BETTIE PAGE, 85

Legendary pinup. Died Thursday night in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since a Dec. 2 heart attack.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

"Bettie Page captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," said Roesler, chairman of the Indianapolis-based CMG Worldwide, who was at Page's side when she died. "She was a dear friend and a special client and one of the most beautiful and influential women of the 20th century."

A religious woman in her later life, Page was mystified by her influence on modern popular culture. "I have no idea why I'm the only model who has had so much fame so long after quitting work," she said in an interview with The Times in 2006.

She had one request for that interview: that her face not be photographed.

"I want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my golden times. ... I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."

The best way to be remembered.

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN, 89

Death announced late Sunday by his son. He was a Nobel Prize winner.

According to The Associated Press:

Through unflinching accounts of the years he spent in the Soviet gulag, Solzhenitsyn's novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.

And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person's courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.

Ivan Denisovich lives on.

PEACE, LOVE, KNOWLEDGE

Barack Obama campaigned hard to end politics "as we know it" -- a kōan perfect for the picayune American mind obsessed with change. Too many Americans are blissfully ignorant about politics (one in three can't name the governor of their state, and three in 10 can't name the vice president of their country). They want to change politics as they don't know it. Maybe then they'll pay attention.

But then again, no. Attention requires effort requires sacrifice, and we're just not into that. What, we should search for information and actually read it? Exercise the big muscle between the ears? Maybe if you bring it to our (desk)(couch)(bed) and hand it to us with the really important stuff highlighted. So, you know, we don't have to work at it.

And slap a slogan on it. We love slogans. "Change We Can Believe In." "A Leader We Can Believe In." "Ignorance Is Strength."

The men who would lead our country appreciate and rush to the lowest common denominator. They talk good, high-minded games to the faithful in their flocks, but they cater to the people who know Peyton Manning but draw a blank on Vladimir Putin, the folks who can't name the Sunni branch of Islam (to them, probably, all Muslims are sweaty, swarthy terrorists).

They follow another time-honored kōan: Keep it simple. Don't bother with facts. Nugget-sized platitudes and zingers, hold the sauce. Don't discuss the difficulties in the Middle East, the complexities of the U.S. relationship with China, the fact that Americans pay half as much (or less) than Europeans at the pump. Don't make people think. Hurts. Brains.

John McCain comes to Springfield on Wednesday. He's supposed to talk about energy and the economy. Avid Republicans will eat the sweets (even though they don't especially care for the confectioner). Avid Democrats will naysay his offerings as leftovers from the Bush kitchen.

Everyone else will wonder why traffic around Missouri State University is bollixed up, but only if it's inconvenient to them. What they know about John McCain and Barack Obama would fill a bumper sticker but not a brochure. They will decide this election based on the last, best slogan they saw on a 30-second ad, sometime in late October.

"The darkness of insanity," as the immortal poet-philospher Declan Patrick MacManus put it. Don't bother looking for a switch. The strong and the trusted like it better with the lights out.

PAST BLASTS, REVIVED

A couple bullets for your Sunday:

•A reporter has tracked down Adolf Hitler's nephew -- to America. Here's a graf from David Gardner's Telegraph story about Hitler's nephew and his offspring:

I was to discover that the Hitler bloodline was carried on through William Patrick's four sons - one of whom died in a road accident in 1989 - and that the brothers had decided in a remarkable pact not to have children themselves in order that Adolf Hitler's genes would die with them.

•The Daily Mail has the story of Sen. John McCain's first wife, Carol, and how she became a former. Suffice to say it doesn't flatter the GOP presidential candidate. After he returned home from a Vietnamese prison, he kicked her to the curb for a prettier model:

Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

"McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory," he said.

"After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history."

Is John McCain history, too? Not a chance.

TRAIN IN VAIN

Some things you can explain away, as the still-living Mick Jones and unfortunately dead Joe Strummer once wrote. A 22-year-old woman probably doesn't know who Barney Fife is because she was born 18 years after The Andy Griffith Show ended (and those last three seasons had the sucky color episodes with a scant six cameos from Barney, so they barely count).

But that's pop culture -- handy to have in a game of trivia, worthless in The Big Scheme of Things. The 22-year-old couldn't care less that the nicotine patch was patented the year she was born. All that matters is that it exists now for her fag-addicted parents.

But that same woman almost certainly knows who Abraham Lincoln was. She knows that the Statue of Liberty is in New York; that George Washington was the nation's first president; that JFK was shot by a bunch of crazies led by Tommy Lee Jones in a bad wig. Back and to the left.

That stuff is history, the umbrella of facts protecting us from hailstones of ignorance, each the size of a Yankee pot roast. Get thwacked with enough of them and society disintegrates to a mush that looks suspiciously like rutabaga floating in the roast's greasy excretions.

We're already partway there, close to being overcooked in our own juices. And for once it's not tabloidism feeding the fire under the pot; this time it's political zeal.

Barack Obama's followers -- and that's what many of them are -- see his campaign for what they want it to be. Even though they're not political virgins they want to be deflowered by a sweet-talking man who says it might hurt, but only for a minute, and then everything's going to be different, you'll see. No more politics as usual.

They think it's the first time that something like a contested primary has every happened, and goddamn that Hillary Clinton for getting in the way of Change. Bitch. She can't clinch the nomination so she should drop out. And who cares if he can't win the nomination, either. It's all her fault.

They want this experience to be neat and tidy and not too taxing. They want a political coronation, not a convention, and their bowels are in an uproar because they're choosing to ignore history. Politics is football played with knives and the occasional smuggled handgun. Even the saint from Chicago knows the bloody backstory.

His followers doesn't want a convention fight because, on some level, they know their Leader will be seen by all for what he already is -- a politician full of hubris and mostly false platitudes who happens to give one helluva speech. Everyone already knows that's what Clinton is, minus the speech thing. Better the general public finds this out about Obama before the fall campaign.

If Dems are lucky this year's convention will be more 1952 than 1968. A contested contest and plenty of drunken courtesans. Maybe a knife wound or two, but no fatal gunfire. Scars heal, and the winner will face John McCain, a crazy pirate with plenty of his own scars, seen and unseen. The Democratic nominee should be equally battle-hardened. A Gonzo tattoo would be a nice touch.

For now, Democrats need to be democratic and let this slasher-flick of a primary season play its course. Let it go to the convention in August. Democrats who want to short-circuit the season say it's unnecessary roughness. Tell it to Michael Myers and his fellow travelers. It's past time to remember that this is politics, nobody's a virgin, and your candidate is probably going to be sodomized. Enjoy the show.

In the touchingly dark film No Country for Old Men, an older, wiser lawman chastises the sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones for overworrying about the violence of the current world:

What you got ain't nothin new. This country is hard on people. Hard and crazy. Got the devil in it yet folks never seem to hold it to account. ... You can't stop what's comin'. Ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity.

Up till now the Clinton-Obama battle has been relatively bloodless. The timid want it to stop. If they will just get out of the way, captive bolt pistols will be brandished and real mayhem can begin.

TIME FLIES

Twenty years ago today we were in Louisiana, covering the downfall of Assemblies of God preacher Jimmy Swaggart.

Fourteen years ago today we left work in a haze of depression and spent the afternoon on a purple leather couch with Wing and Henry, watching MTV's coverage of Kurt Cobain's death.

We felt old and wise then. Any similar feelings now are blunted by the knowledge that we were so wrong then, at least when it came to being wise.

Hello. How low?

DITH PRAN, 65

Coined the memorable phrase "killing fields" to describe the horrors he saw in Cambodia. Three months ago he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Sunday, he died.

From The Associated Press:

Dith spoke of his illness in a March interview with The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., saying he was determined to fight against the odds and urging others to get tested for cancer.

"I want to save lives, including my own, but Cambodians believe we just rent this body," he said. "It is just a house for the spirit, and if the house is full of termites, it is time to leave."

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will probably never be friends. That's why they're perfect for each other.

Clinton and her supporters have been pressing the idea of a unity ticket with Obama -- with her as No. 1, of course -- and the brazen notion has political junkies abuzz.

The New York Times reports that Obama is publicly frosty about the idea of being Clinton's No. 2:

“I don’t know how somebody who’s in second place can offer the vice presidency to someone who’s in first place,” Mr. Obama told a town meeting at the Mississippi University for Women here, alluding to his lead in delegates. As the crowd cheered, he said: “If I’m not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president? Do you understand that?”

Quantity over quality is Obama's argument now, but his bounty isn't that much bigger than Clinton's, and he's lost the big prizes that matter in a general election -- Ohio and Florida, to name two.

(Obama's advisers say Florida shouldn't count because that state broke party rules by holding an early primary on Jan. 29. Neither candidate campaigned there, and Clinton won by more than 16 points.)

The real sticking point for Obama supporters is how much they loath Clinton. When a policy adviser is tossed overboard for telling a reporter that Clinton is a "monster," you know it's just the public mask slipping a nick, exposing the foamed-flecked hate that exists within the Obama camp. No one should be surprised. The rules of the game demand a Duk Koo Kim mentality. Your opponent is out to kill you. Live or die.

One expects such pragmatism from Clinton. People may not like it -- her biggest liability is her unlikability -- but they know it's the only way to do business when you're running with crime-minded punks or high-minded politicians. Only suckers bring soliloquies to a knife fight.

Too much talk this cycle about liking the people running for president. We heard this in 2000 and the nation wound up with a man described as the fella we wanted to drink beer with at the bar. Woe to us that he was a non-practicing alcoholic.

We like John McCain, but mostly because he's nuts. This unfortunately disqualifies him from the White House, but he'd be a hoot in a game of rummy.

We like Obama, but he's wispy. A woman who'd been a state senator less than four years ago would never be taken seriously as a candidate for president.

We don't like Hillary, but we wouldn't mess with her. She's got the biggest blade. Handy in a fight against an ex-POW who was tortured out of his gourd.

So what if Obama doesn't like her? Al Gore wasn't nuts about Bill Clinton. Lyndon Johnson hated John Kennedy. Both of those arraigned marriages worked out pretty well, save for the Florida vote in 2000 and the head-exploding thing in Dallas.

THE CLAW IS OUR MASTER

Scorpions up to eight feet long once lurked in the oceans. Reuters reports:

The discovery of the 390-million-year-old specimen in a German quarry suggests prehistoric spiders, insects and crabs were much larger than previously thought, researchers at Bristol University said on Wednesday.

"This is an amazing discovery," said university researcher Simon Braddy.

"We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies but we never realised, until now, just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were."

The find was described by Braddy and colleagues in the journal Biology Letters.

The claw they discovered was 18 inches long. Even dipped in butter, it probably wasn't a delicacy.

DICK AND HENRY ON RONNIE

Not what you think.

On Nov. 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon talked with National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger. The conversation was recorded, of course.

They discussed Ronald Reagan, then governor of California.

The tape has just been transcribed, just in time for its 36th anniversary. The transcript is a political wonk's wet dream. Excerpts:

President Nixon: What’s your evaluation on Reagan after meeting him several times now?

Kissinger: Well, I think he’s a—actually I think he’s a pretty decent guy.

President Nixon: Oh, decent, no question, but his brains?

Kissinger: Well, his brains, are negligible. I—

President Nixon: He’s really pretty shallow, Henry.

Kissinger: He’s shallow. He’s got no . . . he’s an actor. He—When he gets a line he does it very well. He said, “Hell, people are remembered not for what they do, but for what they say. Can’t you find a few good lines?” [Chuckles.] That’s really an actor’s approach to foreign policy—to substantive—

President Nixon: I’ve said a lot of good things, too, you know damn well.

Kissinger: Well, that too. ... I just listened to his problems. ...

President Nixon: Can you think though, Henry, can you think, though, that Reagan with certain forces running in the direction could be sitting right here?

Kissinger: Inconceivable.

President Nixon: No, but it could have happened. ...

Kissinger: But (Reagan's) not hostile. He says he’s not—He repeated again, he’s not going to do any opposition. He’s willing to help. He’s eager to help.

President Nixon: Would he take Ambassador to the Court of Saint James? I’m sure he won’t go.

Kissinger: After the election?

President Nixon: Yeah. We’ve offered it to him. He doesn’t want it.

Kissinger: But what does he want?

President Nixon: But see he can’t be in the Cabinet. Well, I don’t know. Christ.

Kissinger: Doesn’t he want to be senator in ‘74? ...

President Nixon: ... No, I don’t think he wants to run for the Senate. No governor of a big state will be happy in the Senate. It’s that easy.

Kissinger: That’s right.

President Nixon: The Senate is a shitty job.

Kissinger: It’s a lousy job.

President Nixon: Well, it’s better than the House, but it’s still crappy.

Kissinger: Yeah.

President Nixon: Unless you’re the leader. ... Back to Reagan though. It shows you how a man of limited mental capacity simply doesn’t know what the Christ is going on in the foreign area. He’s got to know that on defense—doesn’t he know these battles we fight and fight and fight? Goddamn it, Henry, we’ve been at—

Kissinger: And I told him—he said, “Why don’t you fire the bureaucracy?” I said, “Because there are only so many battles we can fight. We take on the bureaucracy now, they’re going to leak us to death. Name me one thing that we have done that the bureaucracy made us do.”

President Nixon: The bureaucracy has had nothing to do with anything.

Shallow, but a nice guy. Little did they know.

AT LEAST WE AREN'T HITLER

The blog View from "I" Level turned us on to this test from Similar Minds, where you can learn which of nine famous leaders you're most like.

Take the test, tell us which leader shares your personality. We aligned with John F. Kennedy. Go figure:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

CHE HAIR FOR SALE

A lock of the man's hair goes up for auction soon. The Associated Press reports:

Gustavo Villoldo, 71, was involved in Guevara's capture in the jungles of Bolivia, according to unclassified U.S. records and other documents. He plans to auction the hair and other items kept in a scrapbook since the joint CIA-Bolivian army mission 40 years ago.

"It's time for me to put the past behind and pass these on to someone else," said Villoldo, also a veteran of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

The scrapbook also holds a map used to track down Guevara in Bolivia, photos of Guevara's body, intercepted messages between Guevara and his rebels and a set of Guevara's fingerprints taken before his burial.

It's hard to predict how much the collection will net at auction because there is nothing comparable on the market, said Tom Slater, director of the Americana department at Heritage Auctions of Dallas, which will put the collection on the block Oct. 25-26.

What's it worth? More than a Che shirt?

PARTY PALACE FOR SALE IN ROMANIA

Got an extra $135 million? You could buy the ultimate palace. In Transylvania.

As The Associated Press reports

The Bran Castle, perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania, is a top tourist attraction because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, the warlord whose cruelty inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula."

Legend has it that Vlad, who earned his nickname because of the way he tortured his enemies, spent one night in the 1400s at the castle.

Bran Castle was built in the 14th century to serve as a fortress to protect against the invading Ottoman Turks. The royal family moved into the castle in the 1920s, living there until the communist regime confiscated it from Princess Ileana in 1948.

After being restored in the late 1980s and following the end of communist rule in Romania, it gained popularity as a tourist attraction known as "Dracula's Castle."

In May 2006, the castle was returned to Princess Ileana's son, Archduke Dominic Habsburg.

Habsburg, a 69-year-old New York architect, pledged to keep it open as a museum until 2009 and offered to sell the castle last year to local authorities for $80 million, but the offer was rejected.

On Monday, he put the castle up for sale "to the right purchaser under the right circumstances," said Michael Gardner, chief executive of Baytree Capital, the company representing Habsburg. "The Habsburgs are not in the business of managing a museum."

No price was announced, though Gardner predicted the castle would sell for more than $135 million. He added that Habsburg will only sell it to a buyer "who will treat the property and its history with appropriate respect."

We've seen the Blade trilogy. We know what to do with vampires.

REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN WAR

Fifty-seven years since Korea. Chosun has rarely seen photos of the Korean War, the series of battles forgotten by most people in the United States.

Our father was 20 when his stint in that war began. We think of him when we read about the current war, and the young adults baptized by that blood.

LADY BIRD HOSPITALIZED

The former First Lady was hospitalized Friday. The Associated Press reports that Johnson, 94, "is awake and receiving visits from family members and friends."

Also from the story:

Johnson was hospitalized with a stroke in 2002, and it left her with difficulty speaking. But she has continued to make public appearances and last month appeared at an event at the LBJ Library and Museum.

If this goes badly, Addie will earn the point.

SURVIVING THE WHALE HUNT

The bowhead whale weighed 50 tons when it was caught in waters off Alaska. Embedded in its neck was a small piece of metal -- an arrow-shaped weapon that was made, and fired, more than 100 years ago.

The Associated Press reports:

Calculating a whale's age can be difficult, and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses. It's rare to find one that has lived more than a century, but experts say the oldest were close to 200 years old.

The bomb lance fragment, lodged a bone between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time, said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890. The small metal cylinder was filled with explosives fitted with a time-delay fuse so it would explode seconds after it was shot into the whale. The bomb lance was meant to kill the whale immediately and prevent it from escaping.

The device exploded and probably injured the whale, Bockstoce said.

"It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place," he said. "He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years."

Researchers say the captured whale was probably 115 years old. Just a kid when it was shot.

ANOTHER TOJO FOR JAPAN?

For those who don't remember or don't care to, Hideki Tojo was the Japanese general and prime minister who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was executed in 1948 for war crimes.

His granddaughter is named Yuko; she is 68 and, by her own words, very much like her grandfather.

To that end she is running for office, as an independent for parliament's upper house. The election is in July. The Associated Press reports:

An ultra-nationalist, her mission is to restore Japan's honor by scrapping its pacifist constitution and enacting a full-fledged military, giving the country the clout she says it deserves.

"I was born as Hideki Tojo's granddaughter, and as a Japanese national. I cannot see Japan go on like this, with no confidence or pride," Tojo told The Associated Press. "I do not think the war dead gave their lives for a country like this."

Her views are part of a resurgent right-wing fringe in Japan that espouses a hard line in territorial disputes with the country's neighbors and a rose-tinted view of its past militarism. However, she may be too far to the right even for Japan's nationalists, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who have distanced themselves from her.

Hideki Tojo pushed eugenics in hopes of creating a master race of warriors.

A REAL JARHEAD

In the Nasca region of Peru, archaeologists have found a headless skeleton. Next to it is a ceramic "head jar" with two painted faces.

National Geographic has the story and the fascinating photo. The smart ones believe this was a "rite of ancestral worship."

ANCIENT CITY FOUND BY SATELLITE

A cool photo awaits you at Live Science, where you'll also find the report on a 1,600-year-old metropolis found by satellite imagery.

From Live Science:

Images captured from space pinpoint telltale signs of previous habitation in the swatch of land 200 miles south of Cairo, which digging recently confirmed as an ancient settlement dating from about 400 A.D.

The find is part of a larger project aiming to map as much of ancient Egypt's archaeological sites, or "tells," as possible before they are destroyed or covered by modern development.

"It is the biggest site discovered so far," said project leader Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "Based on the coins and pottery we found, it appears to be a massive regional center that traded with Greece, Turkey and Libya."

Parcak has found about 400 sites by satellite. The oldest one is more than 5,000 years old.

MEMORIAL DAY 2007

Thinking about Memorial Day brought the thirst for history, and to slake it we re-read "In Flanders Fields," the 1915 poem by John McCrae. He wrote it after the funeral of a former student, killed in a shell burst near Ypres, Belgium, the place some Canadians still call the "wipers."

The middle four lines are elegant bluntness:

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

From there in World War I we segued to this site and its display of color photos from the war -- including this one of Mata Hari, the infamous siren. Real name: Greta Zelle. The Dutch woman was executed by the French in 1917 for being a spy. Turns out she's got a little of that Susanna Hoffs thing going on.