SashaCastel.com: June 2002 Archives

This is one of the cleverer quizzes I've seen. Thanks to Spacemonk for the link.

If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Dmitri Shostakovich!

I am a shy, nervous, unassuming, fidgety, and stuttery little person who began composing the same year I started music lessons of any sort. I wrote the first of my fifteen symphonies at age 18, and my second opera, "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District," when I was only 26. Unfortunately, Stalin hated the opera, and put me on the Enemy Of The People List for life. I nevertheless kept composing the works I wanted to write in private; some of my vocal cycles and 15 string quartets mock the Soviet System in notes. And I somehow was NOT killed in the process! And Harry Potter(c) stole my glasses and broke them!

Who would you be? Dead Russian Composer Personality Test

I am ashamed to tell you that the three dissenters in the 416-3 House vote to support the Pledge of Allegiance were all from my fair city. Nydia Velazquez, Gary Ackerman and Jerrold Nadler think that New Yorkers, being the Godless heathens that we are, don't care about the Pledge.

Boy, were they wrong!

My representative, Eliot Engel, voted in support. Thanks Eliot!

My "Gay Debate" post has made a cameo appearance on Chris Matthews' blog at MSNBC's website. Does this mean I'm part of the liberal media conspiracy now?

It looks like this Blogger panel discussion is going down the tubes quickly. First no Kaus, then Lileks and Reynolds got the ol' heave-ho from the airlines. If the organizers would like to invite me, I'll make myself free tomorrow!

DAMN... look at all these visitors! Welcome all, and enjoy the site! My review of the Sullivan/Goldstein debate is a few posts down.

Sign the guest map please, so I know where you're from. And feel free to browse my FAQ, shop from my freshly updated Wish List, leave a comment, or drop me a tip. (I've been running this blog for over three months now and I've not gotten a single tip. Be the first!)

And just for the record, it was NOT ME who referred to Andrew Sullivan as "paunchy". I would never say that. Indeed, I referred to him as "tanned, fit and healthy".

As long as I'm promoting the homocon party line, let me direct you to a letter in FrontPage from the spiritual godmother of the homocon movement (such as it is), Camille Paglia.

Yesterday I slogged through the pouring rain to deepest, darkest Greenwich Village to attend the "Great Gay Political Debate", featuring Andrew Sullivan and Norah Vincent debating Richard Goldstein and Carmen Vazquez.From the opening statements on forward, it was clear which side was going to be adult about these issues.

I hadn't heard of Carmen Vasquez before this evening, but I can understand why she is poular among the lefty queer-theory crowd. She played right into AS's hands by proclaiming that the goal of the gay movement is... (drumroll)...SOCIALISM! Yes, global warming, violence and racism can and should be part of the gay rights movement. Sullivan rightly tore this thinking to shreds, saying that the goals of the movement should be to concentrate on achieveing equal rights in marriage, military service, and the like.

Richard Goldstein (who looks like a jowly Tim Conway) was unable to defend himself against the charges of misquoting Sullivan. He sputtered a lot and even when an audience member directly challenged him about it, he couldn't explain it. (It didn't help that Joan Garry, the moderator, kept cutting off the questioners.) My favorite Goldstein quote of the evening, when he was asked why he brooked no dissent from the official line:
"I do welcome change, I just think it should be identified and dealt with".
Of course! Because we're really too stupid to figure this out on our own. We need to be told by Goldstein and Vasquez and their ilk that "homocons" are the downfall of society as we know it, because, you see, they just don't "get it". It's as if the default mode for any gay person (or anyone else concerned about gay rights) is left-liberal, and for anyone to deviate from that norm is betrayal, pure and simple. I wanted to cheer when a self-identified "black lesbian conservative" asked him why she should be excluded from the movement simply for her politics, and he simply could not answer.

The fourth panelist, Norah Vincent, didn't get much of a chance to speak, but I was intrigued enough by what she did say to be impressed. It is obvious that she and Sullivan are not the "attack queers" that Goldstein would make them out to be. Indeed, the two of them were the only two who behaved themselves with a modicum of civility, and spoke honestly about themselves without patronizing the audience. (Bizarrely, Goldstein would yell out "Blog me to death!" at random times, apropos of absolutely nothing.)

I introduced myself to AS after the panel was over, and we spoke for a minute. I am pleased to say that he looked tanned, fit and healthy, and he was very pleasant and friendly. Unfortunately, I found myself getting a little flustered and failed to ask the truly important question: How did he feel about Kaus suggesting that Bob Hoskins should play him in the movie?

Sullivan's own impressions of the event can be foundhere.

UPDATE: Clay Waters was there too, and he took better notes than I did. (Hey, I'm not a journalist! )

Good morning readers! I'll be at the funny farm all day, forcing myself not to die of boredom as I sit through two performances of Giselle (pronounced with an initial "J", and NOT, as perpetual idiot Charlie Rose called it, "Gazelle".) But luckily, there is a lot of excellent reading for you on the net. Consider:

The new Dennis Prager essay at TownHall: "Why Does The Left Support The Palestinians?" Considering the praise I've heaped on DP in the last week, this should be your required reading for the morning.

The Blogosphere's own Patrick Ruffini has a guest essay on NRO about Amtrak. Way to go Patrick!

Bruce Hill of War Now! has taken a Warblogger Vow of Silence about the Middle East, just in time for President Bush's speech. Poor Bruce has been reduced to blogging about cricket and the NZ Green Party. So he's taken over my comments section. If you want to read what Bruce thinks, look here and here. And leave your own comments please!

Andrew Sullivan is going to be debating Richard Goldstein and assorted other lefties at the New School tonight. I'll do my best to scramble down there and give you a full report.

And I've got a little project kicking around my head. Some of you may think it's silly, some may think it's clever, but I'll be ready to reveal it to the world very soon. So stay tuned!

UPDATE: Clay Waters is quite right: The Sullivan/Goldstein debate is tomorrow night and not tonight. My bad.

Nicholas Kristof gives the anti-globalization crowd hives with this op-ed supporting sweatshops.

Where in the world are John and Antonio? I know they must be seriously bummed at Spain's premature exit from the World Cup, but come on guys. You haven't posted anything in 9 days!

James Robbins has a fantastic analysis of President Bush's Middle East speech on NRO.

Lots of errands to catch up on today, so blogging will be light. I direct you to the snazzily redesigned FrontPage, with a splendid article by new columnist Tammy Brucethe courageous former NOW president, who my loyal readers will recall, was once propositioned by Larry Elder.

If you're here from Privateer orWar Now, welcome and enjoy!

This left me speechless.

It's an article about anti-Semitism in France.We in the Blogosphere have been noticing and discussing this for months now. But I was shocked at some of the cruelties that the article mentions . I can't even quote it, it makes me so ill. Go and read it. It's long and not particularly fun, but you need to.

Will Warren gives his delightfully wry (and poetic, natch) take on the Chomskysaidsontag crowd at Unremitting Verse.

I have a few questions for my readers. Pardon me if they seem simplistic.

What, exactly, is a "provisional state"?
How would such a state differ from the self-governance the Palestinians have now?
How would the "provisional" state differ from an actual, concrete, non-provisional state which is the stated goal of the PA?
Why should we reward terrorists with their own state, provisional or not?

Oh, and one more book, possibly the most important:
Writing about Dennis Prager's new column forTownHall the other day inspired me to dig out my copy of his book, Think a Second Time. Rereading it, I am amazed at its prescience and truth. This book is worth reading from cover to cover, but I would like to especially recommend the chapters "Murder in the Name of God", "Is Liberalism Jewish?",and the classic "Don't Judge Motives". Get it. I promise you won't be sorry.

More book recommendations:

The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara Tuchman.

I love this historian, and I look forward to reading all her books. She makes history read like a cleverly plotted novel.

Grant Speaks by Ev Ehrlich. A mock-memoir of Ulysses S, it's written in a breezy, poor-man's Twain style. I've never been much of a Civil War buff, but I'm considering becoming one after reading this novel.

Anything by T. Coraghessan Boyle, but especially The Road to Wellville or
Budding Prospects.

Rod Dreher's ode to Martha Stewart in this morning's NRO struck a nerve with me. You see, I am a slob. A born,raised, dyed-in-the-wool slob. Even as I type these words, I am surrounded by piles of mail, books, teacups, and assorted other stuff. I don't know where I got my slobby tendencies, since my parents are both neatniks. Maybe it's a recessive trait. I don't know...

Anyway, I've always loathed Martha, but recently I've come to grudgingly respect her and even envy her and what she represents. It wasn't until my 28th year on this earth that I actually acquired a hobby (soapmaking). It always seemed like too much effort and wasted time. Now I whip up a batch of soap to relax myself. Instead of wasted time, it actually creates time for me because it relaxes and focuses me. Soapmaking isn't an art, but it does require a bit of science. You have to weigh the ingredients accurately and combine them at the right temperature, otherwise you end up with a curdled, stinky, caustic mess. But when you get it right, you get the most delightful feeling of having succeeded at something useful. (Not to mention, I've got an endless supply of hostess gifts.)

What was I talking about? Oh, yes. Martha Stewart.

uh...

...Well, I guess I must have started this post with a point to make. But I digressed so violently, I've forgotten it. If it occurs to me, I'll update.

The latest Mark Steyn column, talking about America and the World Cup.

Headline from The Brains Trust: "Despondent French Abolish Themselves"

And yes, the article is as funny as the headline.

John Sweeney of the BBC has the most horrifying article about Iraq. If there were any doubt among certain folk about why there should be a "regime change" as soon as possible, this should dispel that pretty quickly. I offer some nauseating excerpts:(WARNING: I"m not kidding about "nauseating".)

The star witness against the government of Iraq hobbled into the room, her legs braced with clumsy metal callipers. "Anna" had been tortured two years ago. She is now four years old.

Her father, Ali, is a thick-set Iraqi who used to work for Saddam's psychopathic son, Uday. Some time after the bungled assassination of Uday, Ali fell under suspicion.
Saddam's secret police have been accused of torturing children
He fled north, to the Kurdish safe haven policed by Western fighter planes, but leaving his wife and daughter behind in Baghdad.
So the secret police came for his wife. Where is he? They tortured her. And when she didn't break, they tortured his daughter.
"When did you last see your father? Has he phoned? Has he been in contact?" They half-crushed the toddler's feet.
Now, she doesn't walk, she hobbles, and Ali fears that Saddam's men have crippled his daughter for life. So Ali talked to us.
...

I have been to Baghdad a number of times. Being in Iraq is like creeping around inside someone else's migraine. The fear is so omnipresent you could almost eat it. No one talks.

...

'Faked funerals'

Ali talked about the paranoid frenzy that rules Baghdad - the tortures, the killings, the corruption, the crazy gangster violence of Saddam and his two sons.
And the faking of the mass baby funerals.
You may have seen them on TV. Small white coffins parading through the streets of Baghdad on the roofs of taxis, an angry crowd of mourners, condemning Western sanctions for killing the children of Iraq.
They used to collect children's bodies and put them in freezers for two, three or even six or seven months .
Ali gave us the inside track on the racket. There aren't enough dead babies around. So the regime stores them for a mass funeral.
He said that he was friends with a taxi driver - he gave his name - whose son had a position in the regime.
Ali continued, he told me that he had to go to Najaf - a town 160km (100 miles) from Baghdad - in order to bring children's bodies from various freezers there, and that the smell was unbearable.
They used to collect children's bodies and put them in freezers for two, three or even six or seven months - God knows - until the smell got unbearable.
Then, they arrange the mass funerals. The logic being, the more dead babies, the better for Saddam. That way, he can weaken public support in the West for sanctions.
That means that parents who have lost a baby can't bury it until the regime says so.
So how could it be that people would put up with this sickening exploitation of grief?

...

Ali told another story. He had seen Uday kill with his own eyes. This was some years ago, before the assassination attempt left Saddam's oldest son half-paralysed and impotent.
Uday's lust is famous in Baghdad. He wanted a woman who played tennis at Baghdad's Sports Club and he and Ali went round to the club.
As Uday was turning into the car park, a tennis ball came over the fence and bounced against the car of the woman he desired.
The tennis player came into the car park to retrieve the ball, apologised to the woman. Maybe there was a bit of flirting - that does happen at tennis courts, even in England.
From his car Uday watched the two of them. Enraged, he took out a wooden cosh and beat the tennis player's brains out.
And then - get this - a few days later, the dead man's relatives apologised to Uday for the distress their son had caused him.

I'm numb. I can't think of anything else to say. WHY, exactly is this human cancer still alive???

Rumor has it that V.C. Darte may soon emerge from hibernation to write a review of the Acosta/Corella Corsaires. Keep your eyes peeled!

CRAP.

I woke up at 7:30 in the morning for this?

Unbelievably, Dvorak's Rusalka just received its Paris premiere. Here's the review from Le Monde

For non-French-reading visitors, basically they like Renee Fleming and Larissa Diadkova, they're so-so on Sergei Larin, and they completely rag on James Conlon.

Peggy Noonan doesn't like the name "Homeland Security" for the new Cabinet department. Neither do I. But some of the alternatives she proposes are, frankly, dubious:

Department of Domestic Security (DDS)-This department is going to have enough problems doing their unpleasant but necessary work. They don't need to remind us all of the dentist, too.

Department of Interior Security (DIS)-Well, this one is just tailor made for snarky headlines in the Guardian, don't you think?

Department of American Protection- No problem with the initials, I just don't like the name. Too cumbersome, and too reminiscent of an insurance company.

Department of Mainland Security- I hope Hawaii's National Guard doesn't know about this...

The best one Peggy has is Department of Domestic Defense, which she jauntily abbreviates "3-D".

I don't know about this...

Scott Ganz has written a very positive review of Minority Report on his site. Positive enough, in fact, to make me want to go see it.

For those of you sensitive types, the fact that I just complimented Scott does not make me a suck-up, or a homewrecker, or anything else. I'm just saying I liked his review, all right?? Calm down, ferchrissakes.

At long last, Lileks has a new Screed on his site. Go read.

Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner reports that Plácido Domingo is to be awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Way to go, PD!!

30-YEAR -OLD MYSTERY SOLVED!!!

Ken Goldstein is Deep Throat!

And coincidentally, he is also the cause of the decline of the stock market, and Western civilization in general.

As anyone who reads this site with any regularity surely knows, I am a true-blue opera queen. Growing up with an opera singer in the house (a tenor, no less) and working at the Metropolitan Opera in various capacities for 20 years has surely contributed to this. However, I've failed to pick up a similar appreciation of ballet. I can't say exactly why, but I just don't "get" ballet the way I do opera, despite watching about 500 ballet performances over the last 10 years. (No, I'm not exaggerating. That's probably an under-count.)
There is one exception, though. Every time Angel Corella dances, I get it.

The sheer joyful delight of dancing is obvious in every move Angel makes. And I'm not kidding when I say "every move". A lot of dancers I've seen tend to regard the "in-between" moves connecting one spectacular jump to another spectacular spin as not worthy of full effort. (Sorry, I betray my ignorance of ballet terminology by using the graceless phrase "in-between moves". I don't know what else to call them.) I'm reminded of Richard Wagner's famous advice to singers performing his operas: "Concentrate on the small notes, and the big notes will take care of themselves." Angel never ignores the "small notes". Every gesture and facial expression is a joy to watch because he executes them with such care and thought that they are never merely "small".
And the "big notes"-- oh boy! This chap leaps like he's broken free of gravity, spins so fast that you can't count how many revolutions he's made. Like a little boy, he wants to show us this cool thing he learned to do. And yet it never comes off as show-offy or flashy. It's always in service to the music and the drama.

When I watch Angel dance, I'm also reminded of another saying, something I heard a verywise man say hundreds of times to his vocal students:

"You cannot merely sing. You must speak."

When Angel dances, he speaks to me.

Here's Warblogger Watch trying to be clever:

According to the quoted figures, Instapundit gets about 15,000 unique visitors each weak.

Emphasis definitely, gleefully mine.

William Safire gives us another reason (as if we needed it) to be deeply, deeply suspicious of the International Criminal Court

I found this jolting little item at Stephen Pollard's excellentsite:

The day after the French elections, the government announced (according to the International Herald Tribune) that it “was seeking ways to make good on its pledge to sharply cut income taxes.”
Guess what happened next: Romano Prodi issued a statement saying that the Commission would not hesitate to issue a formal warning against any country that relaxed the economic discipline that guarantees the stability of the Euro.
The Commission has sent similar warnings to Portugal and Germany.
So this how the world works under the Euro: On Monday, the French electorate votes by a landslide for lower taxes because it believes it will increase economic growth. On Tuesday, the Commission says it can’t have them because of the ‘Growth and Stability Pact’. Welcome to democracy, euro style.

Once again, I thank God I live in the USA.

If Chris Matthews had any sense of humor at all, he would have called his new MSNBC blog, "Hardblog".

What a wasted opportunity.

Welcome C-log readers! Have a look around, find outa bit about me, , see what I look like, and sign my Guest Map to your left. And of course, donations are always appreciated!

Double dose of Le corsaire today. I don't know where they dug up this bunch of jerks masquerading as the ABT orchestra, but last night's performance had me cringing every five seconds. The brass section especially sounded like they'd all had double helpings of beans for dinner. Now, I'm told that ABT doesn't give the orchestra much rehearsal time. That is a shame, and it should be fixed. BUT, assuming that we count each of the performances as another rehearsal ( which we shouldn't have to do, but bear with me), surely, by the end of the run they'd at least get better. But nooo, us poor slobs who actually care about things like rhythm, and prefer our instruments to be in tune, are forced to endure this pure hell on a daily basis. Why doesn't ABT realize what an embarrasment it is to have an orchestra that makes my high school band sound like the Vienna Phil?

So I will return to blogging tonight, hopefully without my eardrums too traumatized.

In the meantime, I am more pleased than it is polite to say that Townhall has added Dennis Prager to their roster of regular columnists. I've always loved DP, he is thoughtful and usually makes a great deal of sense. If you haven't read his stuff, today's column is an excellent place to start.

Very soon, probably this afternoon, La Blogatrice will see the 10,000th hit to this website. I ask all my readers to help me celebrate by signing my Guest Map, which can be found just to the left below the "About the site" box.

Damn. Ten thousand people!!!!

Thanks to each and every one of you for your support, comments, help, criticism and good vibes. I love you guys. Really. Even the guy in France who dissed me. Even WarbloggerWatch! I love you too, fellows!

Okay, maybe not. But to the rest of the 9,998, I send my deepest gratitude.

Harold Pinter is going to become a Companion of the British Empire. This is what he has to say about being so honored :

"I feel very happy about it. It's very satisfactory. I regard it as a real honour. It comes from the country in which I live for services to literature. It's not an honour with any political connotation."

Oh really? Then why, in the paragraph IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING, does the Telly-graph say this:

Pinter, 71...refused a knighthood offered by John Major in 1996, saying he would not accept an honour from the Conservatives.

I guess "political connotation" is what you make of it, Harold.
Thanks to Perry de Havilland at Samizdata for the link.

More World Cup weirdness: Home team South Korea has defeated the Azurri 2-1 in overtime. That means they'll face Spain in the quarters.

HMMMM....

Excellent reading today, including Derbyshire's latest outrages at NRO, and Robert Locke's devastating exposé of the "race is a social construct" theory.

Speaking of Locke, he's the author of an essay about multiculturalism (from January) that is one of the best things I've read in a long time. I couldn't find it for a long time because for some reason I'd attributed the authorship of said essay to Richard Poe. Don't know why, but I did. (Probably because Poe is such a dang fantastic writer as well.)

Well anyway, here it is, as seen on PejmanPundit. Locke regrets (as I do) that conservatives in this country have allowed liberals and others to co-opt the culture issues in this country. How can we discuss multiculturalism, in its true sense, when we have forgotten what it means to have a culture at all? "Multiculturalism" as defined by the PC crowd, is simply code for "multiracialism", which of course has nothing to do with culture at all.

But I digress. Go read the article, it makes you think.

Brian Micklethwait of Samizdata gives us a plausible explanation for why the USA is in the quarterfinals.

Update your bookmarks, folks.

Grasshoppa has moved to http://www.meltzner.net/grasshoppa/

And Midwest Conservative Journal has moved as well, to http://www.mcj,blogspot.com

Visit them often, they're nice gentlemen.

I'd have bet on Sloth, myself...

Found at Daimnation!

John and Antonio administer Xavier Batalla of La Vanguardia a delightful Fisking:

Really, when you get to the root of these conspiracy theories, their essence is America = God, since they're both omnipotent; the adolescent, small-penised Europeans feel the Nietzschean urge to overthrow God = Parents = America. America, just like God and your parents, is a wonderful thing to have around to blame your own shortcomings on.

Have I mentioned how freakin' funny these muchachos are?

Sullivan's back! And the vacation has done him good.

Sorry for the paucity of bloggage this weekend. Not the easiest or most pleasant of weeks for me, but I promise you I'll be back to my old self ASAP.

In the meantime, ponder this...

USA 2, Mexico 0

This means we face Germany in the quarterfinals. And despite their historical superiority, Germany hasn't been playing all that well this World Cup. Do I smell a USA-Italy semi?

In other happy news, frog-swatters Senegal have upset Sweden 2-1 in overtime, to stake out their own first-ever QF berth. If they can defeat the winner of the Japan/Turkey match, this sets up a semifinal match between them and the winner of England/Brazil. I'll DEFINITELY be staying awake for that one.

Really, who'd have thought? USA in the quarterfinals!!!! Go Boys!!!

I got one of the greatest compliments ever, from Arthur in California:

"Women like you make me wish I were straight" (!!!)

Arthur is not only a bona fide opera queen from the old days (he regaled me with Rysanek and Callas stories), but he was once an assistant to... Ayn Rand! OHHH be still my heart...

Arturo, guys like you make me wish I were a gay man.

I read this onNew York Minute and thought it was a joke. (Some ancient soccer rivalry gone horribly wrong?)

It isn't.

Argentina has attacked a Russian fishing vessel.

I'll research this further and get back to you.

And you wonder why I love opera so much...

Check out this excerpt from a review of the Australian Opera's new production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk:

Although one departing elderly patron near me clearly felt that two murders, a pack rape, copulation, masturbation and a flogging before interval was enough fun to be going on with, the first-night audience in general batted not an eyelid.

And those aren't even production gimmicks. That's what's written into the libretto and the score!

Plus, you gotta love an opera that pissed off Joe Stalin so badly, he wrote an editorial in Pravda denouncing it.

I must say, of the three teams I supported at the beginning of this World Cup, it never occurred to me that the USA would be the only one to advance. No Portugal, no Argentina.

What the hell, I'll take it. GO USA!!!!

(and if that doesn't work out, perhaps Spain?)

A couple of people have written to me asking how to insert diacritical marks into words. It's not difficult at all, really. (Note: This applies to PC users only. I don't know how this works on a Mac. Then again, Mac-heads probaby already know how to do this.)

Go to your start menu. Select "Run".
Type in "charmap".
Voilà! Dïåçrîtíçãl márks gàlørê!

Getting started on my list of opera and vocal CD recommendations. Here are two that I especially love.

Puccini: La Boheme.This is the famous recording with Victoria de los Angeles and Jussi Björling, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. My favorite recording of my favorite opera. EMI has reissued it in their "budget series", which is great for us wallet-watching opera lovers, but these cheap CD's often lack a libretto in the package. No matter: you can find one here. Memo to Steve Green Buy this, and you'll never think of Bohème as a second rate Traviata ever again.

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro. Expensive at $45, but soooo worth it. My favorite modern Figaro, and maybe my favorite ever.

Thanks to Clay for sending this to me!

Have you ever wondered about the secret relationship between blogging and cheese?

Okay, me neither. But Dr. Weevil has.

And just for the record, I find the cheese-shopping experience at Fairway to be superior to that at Zabar's. The staff is friendlier, and they always have new and interesting things to try.

WHEE!

Asparagirl is back!

What are you still doing here?

Stop reading! Go already!

My reply to Steven Plaut has been published in the "Go Postal" section of Frontpage.

Of course, you read it here first.

How swanky is La Blogatrice feeling tonight? Quite.

I had the chance to meet two of my favorite writers tonight: Christopher Buckley and Ann Coulter. They were giving a talk sponsored by a group called The Donald and Paula Smith Family Foundation. Actually, Buckley gave the talk and Coulter introduced him. It wasn't about much of anything, but he told some good stories and jokes that had the entire audience giggling. Afterwards I introduced myself to Mr. Buckley and told him what a fan I was, and how I'd attended a lecture he'd given several years ago at Marymount. He was very sweet and cool, and autographed two of my books. (The inscription in Little Green Men: "For Sasha, a lovely and loyal lady". Grin.) I even mentioned to him that I'd talked about his "Want To Buy A Dead Dictator?" in my post about the recent Beijing News/ Onion flap. He hadn't heard that story and seemed pleased that I'd remembered his work.

I milled around a bit, had a beer courtesy of the Smiths, and introduced myself to Ann Coulter. Now I know she's got a bit of a fan club among certain readers of this page, and let me tell you boys, she is every bit as gorgeous in person. And she is FUNNY! And very gracious, posing for pictures with me and Clay Waters (who tipped me off about this event) and chatting with us about various and sundry subjects.

I'm still a bit high from the whole event. I just wish I hadn't looked quite as bedraggled as I did ( the fault of a sickeningly humid New York afternoon). But hey! I met two people I admire, and they were both really great folks. That's enough to make me optimistic for a few hours, anyway.

John Perazzo makes an excellent point:

When there are sharks in the water, people should not be chastised for changing their swimming habits and thereby "letting the sharks win."

Take that, Roy Edroso! And definitely read the rest of the article.

Went to the Met in the Parks last night for Bohème. Beautiful night, breezy and cool. The singing was uniformly excellent. Marys Mills and Dunleavy were gorgeous as Mimi and Musetta (extra points to Mary D. for the swanky burgundy sequinned dress). Frank Lopardo was in divine voice as Rodolfo, although he betrayed a very uncharacteristic tentativeness at certain points. It was lovely to see Mark Oswald promoted from Schaunard to Marcello, and he delivered with great style and that unmistakable, silky, Robert-Merrill-esque baritone. Franco Pomponi and Julien Robbins as Schaunard and Colline rounded out the cast.

Julius Rudel, however, conducted like he had a plane to catch. All nuance and Italian style were conspicuously absent as Maestro Rudel barrelled his way through this most exquisite of scores. The singers did their best to keep up with him, but it wasn't easy.

I definitely want to go see Barbiere next Monday. Anyone who wants to hang out and get drunk in the park is welcome to come by.

France and Saudi Arabia have been eliminated from the World Cup.

Who says there's no justice in the world?

Nick Kristof briefly jetés back from the Dark Side and admits that the US military (gasp) does some good things.

Yikes.

FrontPage is one of my favorite daily reads. I always find something fascinating, and today is no exception. But I must say, today's article "Treating Terrorists As...Terrorists" by Steven Plaut left a bad taste.

Mr Plaut, a professor at the University of Haifa, discusses the differences between "enemy combatants" and garden-variety prisoners with Miranda rights and such. Throughout the article, he expresses his disgust with authorities in the U.S. and Israel who, for pollitically correct reasons, treat terrorists as the latter rather than the former. He winds up the article with this paragraph:

Terrorists must be treated under a third paradigm, a special one reserved for them. Terrorists must be treated inhumanely. They should be tortured. They must be denied human dignities, for behaving without human dignity is the very basis for their behavior. People who murder groups of children are not entitled to any privileges or shows of humanity. They are beyond the pale. They are garbage. Treating them as such makes a huge powerful statement to the world.

Now, I bow to no one in my hatred of terrorists. But I sincerely believe that it is not the place of any human being to deprive another human being of their essence, human dignity. That is God's job. Once we decide who deserves dignity, we are no better than the mullahs and ayatollahs who maintain power by denying dignity to women, Jews, Christians, homosexuals, dissidents, and anyone else who doesn't fit their narrow definition of holiness.

I swear I'm not joking when I say that I begin each morning with a little prayer thanking God that I live in the United States of America. I can read what I want, think what I want, go where I want, and even write what I want, thanks to this blog. I not only have human dignity, but American dignity. We as Americans have many rights, but we also have many responsibilities. I feel it is my duty as a human and an American to make sure that people around the world, not only in this country, have the freedom to achieve their fullest potential, regardless of race, religion, or anything else. Does this make me an imperialist? Maybe. But can you imagine Mr. Plaut publishing his statements in, say, Syria? Forget the fact that, as a Jew, he'd be dead or in prison. Just criticizing the government's policies would earn Mr Plaut a date with the business end of an AK-47.

I had a spirited debate last summer with a university professor from Canada. He said that denying the Holocaust should be considered a hate crime, and couldn't imagine how I, as a Jew, could be opposed to that. I replied that although I consider Holocaust "revisionists" to be foul liars, to outlaw their ideas would be a lie as well. We can't legislate hate out of business. We can only counter bad ideas with better ideas. And some people will never be convinced. That's life. But the existence of such people should not cause us to forget our American dignity.

Doug Bandow argues that NATO has served its purpose and should be disbanded.

Drop everything right now.

Go readWill Warren's latest.

It made me cry. Really, it did.

The Guardian has a review of the new Turandot at the Nederlanse Opera in Amsterdam, with a newly commisioned last scene by Luciano Berio.

If GWB's nickname for the Russian president is "Pootie-Poot", do you suppose he calls Hosni Mubarak "Hose"?

I really, really hope so.

There's still time to vote for me in theSexiest Female Blogger poll. Perhaps a last-minute surge of votes will put me in the top 10. Go vote and make La Blogatrice very, very happy!

New York Sun, July 5, 2073

Sasha Castel, Philanthropist And Pundit, Dead at 100
by Benjamin Kepple, Editor-In-Chief

NEW YORK--Friends, family and several thousand devoted fans gathered to mourn the loss of billionairess Alexandra ("Sasha") Castel, who died yesterday at the age of 100.

Ms. Castel, who became famous in the early 21st century as the founder of the "La Blogatrice" website, was remembered by her illustrious acquaintances.

Pejman Yousefzadeh, former Attorney General in the Reynolds administration, reminisced that "Sasha was always kind and generous to me. She gave me my start in politics when she introduced me to (former Senate Majority Leader ) Colette Silvestri."

Silvestri, who became famous as the first member of Congress to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama, remebered Castel as " a complete freak with a heart of gold".

Ms. Castel first gained worldwide infamy with her website, one of the first examples of a "Weblog" or "Blog". Her witty and outrageous writings attracted the attention of Blog pioneer Andrew Sullivan. A meeting at New York's SOB club proved fortuitous, when Sullivan took one look at Ms. Castel, renounced his well-known homosexuality and promised publicly to be "Sasha's loyal bitch until the day I die". That statement, unfortunately, proved to be prophetic when Sullivan was found dead of a heart attack in Ms. Castel's Bronx apartment. Rumors that he was wearing a dog collar at the time of his discovery were never confirmed.

Ms. Castel again attracted attention with her plans for Castelpark, the world's first combination performing arts center/ libertarian think-tank, to be built on the site of the former World Trade Center. Investors flocked to the project and construction began in early 2006. New York Mayor Megan McArdle was an important early supporter, taking political heat when she sent in the NYPD to arrest a group of anti-globalism protesters who had camped out on the site and threatened to block further construction..

Castelpark opened in 2007 with a gala concert featuring operatic luminaries Elizabeth "Lizard" Schultz, Melissa Marshall, Julien Uhlig, Brad Cresswell, Amy Goldstein and Oziel Garza-Ornelas, hosted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Scott Ganz. Ms. Castel's controversial insistence on hiring only her friends proved to be an effective artisitic direction, as Castelpark slowly eclipsed even the Metropolitan in glamour.

Ms Castel became a beloved figure in her native city, often cheered by random passers-by as she walked down Broadway to Fairway to stock up on peaches, Bel Paese cheese and cannabis (the latter having been legalized in 2010).

In later years she visited countries around the world to speak to eager crowds. Israel's Prime Minister Renata Malkes welcomed Ms. Castel in 2031, for the 20th aniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat ( a national holiday). Speaking from her vacation home in the newly restored spa-town of Ramallah, Prime Minister Malkes regretted the loss of a "true humanitarian, a woman who did so much for the cause of Israel's survival".

Ms. Castel is survived by her former husbands: film actor George Clooney, Columbia University provost Josh Chafetz, and Secretary of Education Dawson Jackson.

From C-log comes this news:
On Thursday, the FBI issued the alert to state and local law enforcement officials ? its an internal warning to cops around the nation, cautioning that al-Qaida supporters in the United States may use nerve gas to poison subway systems in New York, Washington D.C. and other major cities before or during the fourth of July. The alert states that "this activity is allegedly intended to bring America to its knees on its Independence Day."

If I wonder whether to take the bus on the 4th, instead of the subway, does that mean the terrorists have won?

Christopher Johnson takes a highly entertaining whack or twelve at Arab News. Whee!

Richard Poe reveals a scary new conspiracy to silence dissent in the media.

Notice that I'm not saying anything at all about Argentina's humiliating defeat by England.

In homage to Vodkapundit, who has posted a delicious-sounding recipe for Provençal rack of lamb on his site, I hereby present:

Sasha's Homemade Bread for the Time-Deprived

You can make this from start to finish in less than 90 minutes, and that includes rising time. Your house will smell divine and your friends and family will be enormously impressed.

Ingredients:

2 packages active dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups warm skim milk
4 1/2 cups white flour
herbs or spices if you'd like (dill, rosemary, black pepper, etc.)

1. Mix the first four ingredients in a large bowl and stir well. If you're adding herbs, toss those in now too.
2. Take the first cup of flour, pour it into the bowl, and stir it up for about three minutes with a heavy-duty spoon or spatula. (Wooden spoons are not built for this kind of hard labor.)
3.Repeat, with another cup of flour. Stretch out your shoulders, because they are gonna be hurtin' by now. Repeat again.
4. The last 1 and a half cups of flour should be added a 1/2 cup at a time. When the batter gets too heavy to stir, knead it with your hands. The final dough should form sheets when you pull at it.
5. Grease 2 eight and a half-inch loaf pans, also known as 1 pound pans. If you use 9 inch pans, your bread will come out flat and under-risen and pathetic-looking.
6. Divide the dough among the two pans, cover them with a dry dishtowel (clean, please!), and place them in your COLD, UN-PREHEATED oven for 20 minutes.
7. Remove the dishtowel and turn the oven to 250. Bake for 10 minutes.
8. Turn the oven up to 375 and bake for an additional 40 minutes, or until the loaves test done (they should make a hollow sound when you tap the bottom).

Do you remember a few years ago, when Christopher Buckley wrote a satire for Forbes about the Kremlin being so desperate for hard currency that they'd decided to auction off Lenin's embalmed corpse? And how various news media (including ABC World News Tonight) took the story and ran with it, without bothering to check and see if it was true or not?

Well, the same thing has happened again, in China. The Austin Statesman has the complete, hilarious story: The Beijing News reprinted in its entirety a story from the Onion (!) without seeming to realize that it was satire.

Nobody at the Beijing Evening News, perhaps not even the reporter, appeared to realize it was a joke.
Yu Bin, the editor in charge of international news, acknow- ledged Thursday that he had no idea where the writer, Huang Ke, originally got the story. Yu said he would tell Huang to "be more careful next time."
But he adamantly ruled out a correction and grew slightly obstreperous when pressed to comment on the article's total lack of truth.
"How do you know whether or not we checked the source before we published the story?" Yu demanded. "How can you prove it's not correct? Is it incorrect just because you say it is?"

You know what? I actually have nothing else to say about this.

And if you didn't know about the Buckley story, you owe it to yourself to check out Wry Martinis.

UPDATE: Josh Chafetz had this story hours ago.

The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle;
the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.

If you recognize the line above, then you will have a chuckle at this story from our wacky friends in Tonga.

Yea, verily, yea!

Welcome, Jane Galt readers! And Dawson readers! And Kepple readers! If you're looking for the Warblogger Watch post, scroll down a bit to yesterday's stuff.

But as long as you're here, why not find out a bit about me? All sorts of fun stuff can be found on my FAQ page, but if it's a pic you're looking for, then head over to my AOL Hometown page.

And of course you can follow the example of the great and powerful Max Power and buy me a book from my wish list.

UPDATE: Welcome also, to Up Yours readers. Stefano, thanks for saying I've got "great spirit and joy", even though I've been grumpy as all heck for the last few days. And Dawn...whoo! I see why she is beating the snot out of me in the Sexiest Blogger poll. That is one sexy lady!

La Blogatrice is tired but happy after watching the the USA defeat Portugal 3-2. Unfortunately, I must also head to the funny farm for two performances of La fille mal gardée, which must surely be the most ridiculous, asinine, lame-ass excuse for a ballet ever written (it starts with a variation for dancing chickens, for Pete's sake). And on two hours of sleep, no less. Snore.

So I hereby present most of today's bloggage in one fell swoop.

1) First and foremost, say a prayer for the 16 innocents killed in the latest bus bombing in Israel.

2) Lileks takes down Patti Davis, Joyce Maynard and others in today's delightful Bleat.

3) Pejman Yousefzadeh has a new article at TechCentralStation , discussing our potential (impending?) invasion of Iraq.

4) Go visit the latest Sasha-approved links:Benjamin Kepple,Scott Rubush, and the wonderful John and Antonio in Barcelona, who think I'd look good in a beret. J&A; just got blogrolled by the Professor, so you know they must be worthy.

5) Read Pan Hu's moving commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre on NRO.

6) If you haven't already, for the love of all that's good in the world, go vote for me as Sexiest Female Blogger. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

7) Go visit Osama bin Laden's alter ego... in Tennesee, no less.

8) Read this article about a park in Jerusalem, named for my ancestors. Kindly provided by Gil "Israeli Guy" Shterzer.

That's all for now. If I'm still alive tonight, I'll check in again.

I occasionally read Warblogger Watch for a laugh. But I read yesterday's post by Roy Edroso and it left me utterly speechless (yes, really). First, he disses Asparagirl, and that is very, very unwise. The Blogsphere takes care of its own, buddy, and we are proud of our Asp. But what's even more infuriating is the following:

Asparagirl appears to live in New York, and to be one of those citizens (like Peggy Noonan) constantly worried about terror attacks: This very afternoon, I read on the Drudge Report that New York landmarks were mentioned by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as being likely targets; so much for Scott and me paying a visit to Ellis Island later this week.

Please, friends, tell the world: many of us who live in the Big Town (as I have for many years, though some analysts affect not to notice this, even when it is plainly mentioned in the texts they are dissecting) have chosen not to be cowed by terrorists foreign or domestic.

Roy, being concerned about terrorism DOES NOT equal being cowed. It is common sense. When a bunch of vicious America-hating killers say that there might be an attack on something, WE PAY ATTENTION, for the very simple reason that we have already been attacked. Does that mean we are giving in? No! We just don't particularly care to die that day. Ellis Island can wait until the threat is reduced. And the more Al-Qaeda we capture, the more information we will get and the safer we can all be.

You go ahead, Roy. Be macho and "refuse to be cowed".Then take a walk to the giant pit at the corner of Cortlandt and Church streets. Take a good long look.

THAT is why we are more careful now.

I suppose it's become de rigeur to urge people to visit Dawson's spiffy new site. But it is really, really cool. Take a look.

And my name is in purple!

This is why I love conservatives... we can make jokes among ourselves and nobody will sue us.

Today's Frontpage.com carries a profile of Tammy Bruce, the former radical feminist and NOW spokeswoman who broke from the left and authored The New Thought Police. (It's on my Amazon wish list.) Anyway, the article talks about a party at the home of Frontpage founder and anti-PC guru David Horowitz: Here is a brief excerpt:

Horowitz's airy living room is windowed for the ocean view, and it's starting to fill up with what will become a group of about 40. Bruce soon encounters KABC talk-show host Larry Elder, a libertarian black man known to have his own group-identity spats. He is friendly, bright and at ease here. When he sees Bruce, whom he has met before, he smiles. He busses her on the cheek, then says impishly, "Girl, give me one night--just one night--and I'll turn you around."
Bruce smiles and blushes. "What do I tell my girlfriend?" she asks, a little at a loss for words.
This is a heaven-sent response for the quick-witted Elder. "Bring her along!" he says, with a booming laugh.
Two or three people are idly listening. Joking or not, if this were most feminist or gay groups, Elder would have just committed a gross impropriety. These listeners, however, chuckle without taking offense and meander toward the food table.

Now that's the kind of banter that you just don't hear anymore. How I would have loved to attend that party!