…sing:
The Pirates of Somalia
In my youth, the word “pirate” had become somewhat of a joke, with overtones of operetta (“The Pirates of Penzance”) crossed with Disney’s version of Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island) and Halloween costumes featuring funny hats and eyepatches.
Lately, of course, the joke’s been on us and the rest of the Western world—and it’s not a funny one. Piracy has become the profession for go-getters in the anarchic failed nation of Somalia. There is essentially no effective central government within Somalia to stop them or the terrorist elements that find a home there. And, as we’ve learned so many times before, the local problems of failed nations can tend to metastasize.
It is highly ironic, but not really all that contradictory, that the Maersk Alabama was on its way to deliver food aid for the people of Uganda and Somalia when it was boarded by the Somalian pirates. Failed nations are failed nations, and they fail in a number of ways all at once—including the failure to feed their people.
The scope of the problem makes possible remedies more complex. The simplest one would be for shipping companies to permit the captains (and perhaps selected crew members) of the vessels at risk to bear arms for self-defense:
[L]awyers [advising the companies] misinterpret the Law of the Sea Treaty and the Geneva Conventions and fail to apply the powerful international laws that exist against piracy. The right of self-defense — a principle of international law — justifies killing pirates as they try to board a ship.
Nonetheless, entire crews are unarmed on the ships that sail through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Shipowners pretend that they cannot trust their crews with weapons, but the facts don’t add up.
Here’s another good idea, if the international community could ever get its act together long enough to implement it:
The international right of self-defense would also justify an inspection and quarantine regime off the coast of Somalia to seize and destroy all vessels that are found to be engaged in piracy.
The situation in Somalia itself is a much knottier problem. Is the world—or the US, which is what these things often boil down to—ready to take on the rebuilding of another failed and chaotic nation, especially one that seems to have little strategic importance? Very doubtful. And, since these pirates don’t tend to sit together around campfires singing “Yo heave ho and a bottle of rum,” surgical strikes would be unlikely to be all that surgical.
Those uneasy royal heads
I know it must be difficult to be a royal and all, especially nowadays when their roles are devoid of power and merely ceremonial. How to find purpose in such an empty, fishbowl existence? It gives new meaning to Shakespeare’s observation that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Oh, there are perks, of course. Money. Castles. More castles. Horses and dogs, if you like that sort of thing, as well as more jewels than you can count.
Notoriety, wanted or un. Tabloids peering into your business. And for the ladies, obligatory hats.
Now, most of us don’t look all that good in hats. It takes a certain savoir faire, panache, je ne sais quoi to wear them well.
From the looks of their Easter bonnets yesterday, the British royal family seems to lack those very qualities (perhaps that’s why the phrases are in French rather than English). In fact, several of them seem to have given up all pretense of trying.
First up, the Queen herself, who exhibits a certain style that is so far beyond style that it is above style. It is, simply, Her Look, no more and no less than the same timeless frumpiness she displayed even in her early days as a young and beautiful monarch, back in the 50s. And very matchy-matchy indeed:
Next, the Countess of Wessex, Prince Edward’s somewhat-Dianaish-lookalike wife. She’s an attractive woman, to be sure. But I think she overdoes the hunting motif in a hat that is bewildering and overwhelming—is that an entire quail (or perhaps a young turkey) nesting on a really tall fedora made of gauze?:
Let’s turn to the relative restraint of the The Duchess of Cornwall, otherwise known as Prince Charles’ wife Camilla. Perhaps her red beret with the two sharp feathers is as good as it can possibly get for her, hatwise. But it’s at odds with the romantic pearl choker—and then there’s that huge collar and the flippy dippy 80s hairdo. I dunno, you decide:
But I’ve saved the strangest for last. I have a certain sympathy for Princess Anne. She’s long seemed to me to be a no-nonsense sort who’d rather be doing almost anything than wearing these silly hats and waving to the crowds; maybe mucking out a stable or something. But even though she’s not into fashion, does she have to go to such extremes to prove it?:
Captain freed
This excellent news is just in: the American captain has been freed by the US Navy.
Details are sketchy as yet:
Three pirates were killed and one was in custody after what appeared to be a swift firefight off the Somali coast, the official said. Phillips, who was not hurt, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby.
The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
This article offers a bit more information. It appears that talks broke down when the US insisted that the pirates be tried for their crimes. The Somali side disagreed, and later a firefight of some sort ensued, with the result that several of the pirates were killed and Phillips freed.
Three cheers for the US Navy!
[ADDENDUM: Now there are reports are that the firefight began when the captain jumped overboard under cover of darkness.]
[ADDEUNDUM II: The above is confirmed. Phillips is doubly a hero, having jumped overboard and sparked the Navy SEALS’ attack on the pirates, as well as having earlier offered himself as hostage to save his crew.
Phillips is 53, and seems to be in the mold of another modest and 50-something hero Captain Sullenberger, who likewise managed to save all aboard his vessel as well as himself. Phillips hails from New England’s only coastally-challenged state, Vermont, and is described by those who know him well in terms very similar to those used for Sullenberger:
Phillips’ sister-in-law said the captain’s self-sacrifice was characteristic of the man. “That is what he would do. It’s just who he is and his response as a captain,” Gina Coggio told ABC.
His mother, Virginia Phillips, said: “I’m sure it’s going to be OK. I know my son. He’s a survivor.”
There’s also this, from the father of one of the crew:
“He says that he’s one of the most diligent masters he’s ever seen,” Joseph Murphy said. “Very, very particular about how things are done and wants them done perfectly, and he drills until he gets it.”
We’ll probably be hearing more details, some of them from Phillips himself:
Phillips has a reputation for telling stories about his adventures at sea. “The way the guy tells a story is amazing,” said Tom Coggio, 41, Phillips’ brother-in-law. “We’re just all waiting for him to get home and tell this one.”]
[ADDENDUM III: As far as Obama’s role in all of this, we really don’t know. At the very least, he doesn’t appear to have done anything foolish. Also, he may have been responsible for the refusal to allow the pirates to release their hostage without consequences, and the insistence that the perpetrators be brought to justice as part of any deal. If so, he is to be commended.
The fact that this incident occurred on the high seas was actually a plus, as was its relatively small scale. This meant that, unlike the debacle of Carter’s Iran hostage crisis, the captive could not be paraded before cheering crowds or unfriendly cameras, and no invasion of a faroff foreign land was necessary to mount a rescue operation. You may recall that Carter’s one attempt went very poorly indeed.]
[ADDENDUM IV: Obama is reported to have authorized the military to use force to rescue the hostage. Good.
The order of things has also become a bit unclear to me. Did Phillips jump overboard first, or was the order to fire given first? Here’s a report that Phillips was judged to be in imminent danger of being killed when the rescue began.]
[ADDENDUM V: I had pictured the lifeboat as being relatively open. But I just heard on Fox that it was closed, with a fairly small open hatch that would have been the only way to fire on the pirates. So the SEALS’s feat is even more amazing.
As was Captain Phillips’s. Apparently, he may have been tied up when he jumped into the water. According to terrorism expert Bob Newman, currently speaking on Fox, Phillips’s alma mater the Massachusetts Maritime Academy trains its graduates in fairly advanced water survival techniques.]
The perfect jelly bean
There is only one jelly bean worth eating at Easter or any other time of year.
No, not those weirdly flavored “gourmet” Jelly Bellys (I consider the term “gourmet jelly bean” to be an oxymoron). The traditionalist in me abhors them, despite Reagan’s fondness. As for those jelly beans placed on the endless supermarket aisles of Easter treats that tempt us from Valentine’s Day until tomorrow—when the remnants go on sale and those get scarfed up as well—the vast majority should not be consumed by anyone above the age of four. Maybe even by anyone below the age of four.
What should? I submit these, which are a tad more expensive but probably will not break the bank:
Traditionally fruit-flavored, made with smooth and succulent pectin, with a lovely and slightly translucent sheen, they go down easy. Maybe too easy; it is possible to eat quite a few before realizing what’s happening. Take it from one who knows.
How did jelly beans come to be associated with Easter? It seems a no-brainer because of their egglike shape, but apparently the tradition didn’t really get going until the 1930s. Jelly beans are far older than that, however, making their debut as the confection promoted by Schrafft of Boston for sending to Union soldiers during the Civil War (a crafty man, that Schrafft).
A little-known jelly bean fact (at least to me) is that, “in United States slang in the 1910s and early 1920s a ‘Jelly bean’ or ‘Jellybean’ was a young man who made great efforts to dress very stylishly, presumably to attract women, but had little else to recommend him…The word was also used as a synonym for pimp.”
Returning to the actual candy, I offer a caveat: there is hardly anything worse than the shock of thinking you’re biting into a normal fruit-flavored jelly bean and getting a spicy one. They should be identified by special markings, like those insects that are bad to eat, as a warning to others. I suggest racing stripes.
But if you buy the Russell Stovers, no need to be on the spice alert. And remember: tomorrow the sales begin! Although, come to think of it, it’s a sign of this particular jelly bean’s superiority that not only are they generally available year-round, but at some stores they are exempted from the post-Easter markdowns. They’re that good.
Happy Easter!
Happy Easter to all my celebratory Christian readers, and to all those who just enjoy the holiday as well!
One year when my son was little, I spent the week prior to Easter blowing out eggs and dying them. Now that he’s grown and away, the eggs are packed away in boxes and stored in parts unknown. If I could get my hands on them I’d photograph them for you, because even all these years later they are beautiful, with dyes both subtle and unsubtle, interesting etched patterns and rainbow effects—definitely one of my finest crafts hours (to tell the truth, I didn’t have so many fine crafts hours, although there was also a gingerbread house we made that was stored in the attic and alas, eaten by small creatures–and not human ones, at that.)
Blown-out eggs are well worth the trouble, and why? Because they last. And nothing eats them. You only have to make them once, and you’re all set. They are a bit fragile, but not so very.
So here’s my Easter present to you (not that you couldn’t find it yourself): the instructions for blowing eggs:
First, you’ll need to make a tiny pin hole on each end of the egg. A pin works well, or a wooden kitchen skewer or even the tip of a sharp knife. Gently work the tip of the pin/skewer/knife in a circular motion until a tiny hole appears. Repeat on the other side. Then insert the pin or skewer (the knife will be too big here) far enough into the egg to break the yolk. Use your mouth [blow] to expel the contents of the egg.
And here is a more complex–but perhaps better–way, for those obsessive-compulsives among us.
These aren’t mine, but they’ll have to do as substitute:
[NOTE: This is a repost from Easters past. But it still works for me.]
You want arrogant, dismissive, and derisive? I’ll give you Obama Press Secretary Gibbs
At the outset I ignored this business about Obama’s Saudi bow. No, I didn’t like it and yes, I thought it was just another sign of Obama’s inattention to American traditions and history, including the precedent of not bending low to foreign royalty.
But I didn’t think it important enough to write about until an anonymous White House aide made an excuse for the bow that was patently absurd on its face (in other words, a baldfaced lie): that it wasn’t a bow, but instead a dip in order to equalize height during a two-handed handshake. I forgive mistakes much more easily than lies, you see, especially lies that insult the intelligence of the listener.
But even then I figured that there was a possibility that this was a rogue statement by an anonymous White House aide. Now that reservation has been removed—unless, of course, you would like to claim that Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is not an official spokesperson for the President himself.
Not only did Gibbs lie about Obama’s bow at a recent press conference by telling the same tale, but he did it with a smile that was—dare I say it?—as arrogant and derisive as they come, and added some dismissive comments, as well:
Here’s a transcript, just in case you didn’t catch it (although the text fails to capture the all-important tone of Gibbs’s remarks):
QUESTION: And then one unrelated question. When the president met with King Abdullah, there was something that took place which I believe the White House explained as just the president being taller than the king. We took a look at the video, and it does appear that the president actually bowed to King Abdullah. Did he bow or didn’t he?
GIBBS: No, I think he bent over with both to shake ”” with both hands to shake his hand, so I don’t”¦
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) one hand, that he ”” he was just”¦
GIBBS: Well I ”” I ”” I ”” this is”¦
QUESTION: Did he bow or didn’t he?
GIBBS: No, but I think this meeting was like a week ago, right?
QUESTION: That’s right, but this is something that a lot of people are still talking about today.
GIBBS: I can only imagine it is of great cause and concern for many people struggling with the economy.
As usual, it’s not the original act so much as the coverup. This particular coverup is somewhat like trying to hide something under a piece of Saran wrap. The truth is obvious to any person who objectively studies the tape; therefore the lie is also obvious.
I cannot recall another administration so willing to offer lies that are so unconvincing and so easily identified as such (when Clinton denied his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, for example, the American people hadn’t yet seen the evidence, and I assume he was hoping they never would). The closest I can come is Richard Nixon, the “Rose Mary stretch,” and the erased audiotape. But at least that happened during Watergate, when Nixon was fighting for his political life.
In contrast, the Obama administration tells obvious lies over events that seem relatively unimportant; why not just say the bow was an error? I can only conclude that this administration’s behavior stems not only from an amoral disregard for truth and falsehood (not all that unusual in politicians, sad to say), but from a concomitant arrogance so deeply ingrained as to be reflexive, and a profound contempt for the American people’s judgment. I can only hope that events will prove Obama and Gibbs wrong in that last assessment.
The roots and longevity of anti-Americanism
The topic for the day is anti-Americanism.
Some liberals think it all started with Bush. Some Leftists like to pretend it did, although they may know better. And some people think it’s because America is a swaggering, aggressive, imperial power, and that if Obama abdicates that role and says the proper mea culpas, it will all go away.
Anti-Americanism may not be up there with anti-Semitism in its longevity and protean nature, but it has one characteristic in common: it’s a shape-shifter. Anyone who thinks anti-Americanism (or anti-Semitism) is due to a particular thing, and that if that thing were changed or eliminated it would disappear, is ignoring the hatred’s long and varied history.
If you’re not familiar with James Ceasar’s 2003 essay on anti-Americanism, please give it a read. Ceasar writes that “anti-Americanism reigns as the lingua franca of the intellectual class” in Europe, and that it “rests on the singular idea that something associated with the United States, something at the core of American life, is deeply wrong and threatening to the rest of the world.”
The remainder of Caesar’s essay is dedicated to analyzing the components of that idea as well as its antiquity. Along the way there is much that is fascinating—for example, he traces pre-WWII Japanese concepts of America to the influence of German philosophers on Japan’s elite.
Anti-Americanism started at virtually the same time as the country’s birth—actually, even before its birth—and was a European creation that later spread around the world. Ceaser has identified five epochs and types of anti-Americanism, although there is same overlap among them. But the main point is that any hatred that has persisted for so long in so many differing manifestations partakes a great deal of the irrational, no matter how rational some of its points may sound.
One of the many underpinnings of anti-Americanism—although Ceasar does not focus on this particular one—is America’s idea of itself as an exceptional country. This is somewhat similar to the largely misunderstood idea that the Jews think they are a chosen people, and is used as an excuse for hating each group. Although there’s a great deal of disagreement as to what “American exceptionalism” acutally means (in fact, the notion was coined by a Frenchman, de Tocqueville) in general it refers to the fact that America thinks it has a special place in the world as the bastion of liberty.
This seems to be okay with Europe as long as America is involved in defending Europe’s liberty, which it did at great cost during WWII and the Cold War. And although even then anti-Americanism was rampant in the western part of that continent—especially in academia and lofty philosophical circles—the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union caused western Europe to perceive less need for us, and anti-Americanism began to grow and spread.
George Bush’s presidency served as a focal point and multiplier for an already-existing dislike. Barack Obama will be able to damp down that hatred only to the extent that he humiliates America before the world, surrenders individualism for the collective, and joins Europe in its statist tendencies and welfare-state economy—in other words, to the extent that he surrenders the idea of American exceptionalism.
And Obama didn’t even get…
…thirty pieces of silver for this betrayal.
This pizza has pizzaz
Obama spares no expense to get his favorite pizza.
Sure, guy. Have one on us.
[Hat tip: Jack M. at Ace.]
[NOTE: And yes, I know that all presidents indulge in these perks now and then. But Obama is facing a financial crisis in which excesses like this seem particularly offensive.]
[ADDENDUM: Is this the truth behind Pizzagate? Or is it just the coverup?]
Krauthammer on Obama’s foreign jaunt
Read Krauthammer on Obama’s trip, and the fruit it might bear.
All in all, Obama makes Carter look as though he was ahead of his times, and rather conservative as well. Who knew?
Those unfashionable male chest hairs
Fausta notes the current trend towards men’s chests that are bulging with muscles and yet simultaneously as smooth as babies’ bottoms:
Why are young men waxing their chests? You look at any ads showing bare-chested men nowadays and there’s not one singe chest follicle on display.
True, all too true, although I can’t say I ever paid much attention to the phenomenon until Fausta did; young male models are rather out of my league these days.
But although the hairy back was never a sought-after commodity even in my youth, men used to want to have hairy chests. Or, rather, they used to not care so much whether they did or didn’t—certainly not enough to submit to the painful experience of waxing.
There’s a tremendous amount of variation in what’s considered normal in the male chest hair arena. Much of it is genetic; in my own family, for example, the males tend towards the hirsute. But in my love life, I can’t say I’ve been aware of any personal preference, and I’ve never really cared whether the man is virtually hairless or quite hairy.
But hey, my preferences (or lack thereof) apparently don’t dictate fashion. And so now, young men in the prime of life are busily stripping their chests of every last trace of body hair just to look good.
Oh, I know that swimmers have done it for decades in order to reduce drag. And body builders do it to enhance the shape of the muscles. But apparently the practice has spread from being the exclusive province of swimmers and bodybuilders to the male models and then to the movie stars and then to the young buff Joes on the street trying to attract the chicks.
Why? I’m never at a loss for theories, though, so I’ll offer up a few.
There’s been a growing trend towards male TV and movie stars who look boyish rather than manly. Leonardo DiCaprio is typical, a fine and wildly popular actor but a perennial babyface who appeared, in most of his early roles, to have been unable to get a beard going if his life depended on it (although now that he’s entering middle age, he seems to have developed the ability to coax out a modest amount of facial hair). I don’t get his sex appeal; I thought that in “Titanic” the lovely Kate Winslett looked as though she could have chewed him up and spit him out for breakfast—or at least told him to go out on the deck and play with the other kids.
One could also say that this is part of a general trend towards androgyny and away from sexual dimorphism, and perhaps one would be correct. But I’m not at all sure; I think the more basic trend is away from age (or even adulthood) and towards youth. It’s not so much that sexuality or even sexual dimorphism are being spurned, it’s growing old—or growing up.
Purposeful and self-inflicted chest hairlessness is also an example of the general tendency to tinker with the human body. Body-building, body-piercing, liposection, plastic surgery—every inch seem to be fair game for transformation and supposed improvement. Throughout history and across the world, people have always been willing to suffer for the sake of attractiveness; the only things that keeps morphing are the details. And if you think about it, shaving or waxing are a whole lot less traumatic than foot-binding or neck-stretching with rings, or so many of the manifold torments to which human beings have subjected themselves in the vain (in every sense of the word) pursuit of beauty.
If you Google “chest hair makes comeback,” you’ll get a bunch of articles claiming that this is so. Some of them even go back quite a few years. And yet the shaved chest is still going strong, which makes me think the vaunted comeback is somewhat of a fantasy. I’ll believe it when I see it in male models. Don’t hold your breath.
I guess I can’t publish this post without a photo; it would just be so wrong. So here’s the male model and actor (and not at all babyfaced) Giles Marini. I confess to intermittently watching “Dancing With the Stars,” and this guy is a natural dancer and favored to win it all.
Here’s Giles as model, minus chest hair:
And here he is dancing a fiery tango (the accent doesn’t hurt, either):