Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Leave it to Heeb to dig deep into our Jewishness and come up with someting so painful yet funny:


Comeon, you have to admit you were laughing. But I was also a little freaked. Why do I find this so disturbing? Is it really that sacrilegious? If I looked outside of my religious identity, I would say that a pig is an animal, it has a right to exist, and it just happens to be chilling around some Shabbat table somewhere (although I am sure there is some law out there against having a pig near a prayer book).

Not to get too serious with this posting (by the way, I am loving that punk cover of the Fiddler on the Roof song) but I think it does an interesting job of revealing the power of symbolism and laws in our lives. I ask my fellow Tribesman and Tribeswomen: Was it just me or were you a little freaked out?

Foodgasm

As doth quoteth ye Homer Simpson: "mmmmmmm......... choccclaaaate." As if dark chocolate wasn't good enough...try this blend of dark chocolate with cranberries, blueberries and almonds. Who says American chocolate is bad?

Me Gustas Cuando Callas

If you haven't heard the Brazilian Girls yet, I highly recommend them, particularly their self-titled album (I haven't heard much of their new one yet, but I've heard it's not as good). Surprisingly enough, my sister (aka Barbara Streisand lover) discovered them before I did. KCRW truly makes miracles happen.
She also fell in love with "Me Gustas Cuando Callas," which is a song on the self-titled track that puts one of Pablo Neruda's most beautiful poems to a most beautiful melody. You can read the lyrics, in both English and Spanish here.

Yo' Mama Fukuyama

I wasn't really a Fukuyama fan in college (Hegel, shmegel. Tell us something useful and contemporary man!), but I think I agree with him in this article. It's interesting that Fukuyama is taking this position, mainly because he was pushing for a US invasion of Iraq during the Clinton administration. It's also interesting (or wussy) that he chose a UK paper instead of a domestic one to make his point. Not that DoD, the Dept. of State and other former friends would listen to him anyways-- he's been anti-neocon for a while now: he opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion, claims to have voted against Bush in 2004 and called for Rumsfeld's resignation around that same time. I hope we increasingly hear similarly-reformed opinions like these before anything extreme (and impulsive) takes place with Iran. I hold the Dems in my prayers. May they keep our crazy Prez and VP in check. Ahhhmen.

The neocons have learned nothing from five years of catastrophe
Their zealous advocacy of the invasion of Iraq may have been a disaster, but now they want to do it all over again - in Iran

Francis Fukuyama
Wednesday January 31, 2007
The Guardian, UK

American military doctrine has emphasised the use of overwhelming force, applied suddenly and decisively, to defeat the enemy. But in a world where insurgents and militias deploy invisibly among civilian populations, overwhelming force is almost always counterproductive: it alienates precisely those people who have to make a break with the hardcore fighters and deny them the ability to operate freely. The kind of counterinsurgency campaign needed to defeat transnational militias and terrorists puts political goals ahead of military ones, and emphasises hearts and minds over shock and awe...

What I find remarkable about the neoconservative line of argument on Iran, however, is how little changed it is in its basic assumptions and tonalities from that taken on Iraq in 2002, despite the momentous events of the past five years and the manifest failure of policies that neoconservatives themselves advocated. What may change is the American public's willingness to listen to them.

SNOW!!!!

I'm over the cold, but I'm not over the way snow can make everything mundane so damn beautiful, such as my morning commute:...out of my apartment building...
...on my way to Dupont metro...

...and from the metro to the office.

A little DC humor

The world really does revolve around politics here. Last week I attended a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building. It was roughly a week since Bush's "democrat majority" debacle during the State of the Union. On my way to the hearing, I passed by this:



In case you can't read it, some irritated democratIC hill staffer has added an "ic" to the end of "democrat!" Get it?!? Get it?!? Ach, maybe you have to live in Washington to find this funny.

Maybe that's where he keeps his Skittles...

The easily nauseous need not click.

Ew.

DJ Cheb i Sabbah & Frédérique

I was particularly excited to come across this clip because Cheb is my favorite DJ, Frédérique was my first Tribal Belly Dance instructor back in the days in Oakland (and she rocks), and they're performing at Amoeba Records in Berkeley, where I have so many fond memories. Special props to Maymoonchi for sending it to me!