Favorite lede of the day

"A woman has been arrested in Mecca in Saudi Arabia for driving a car."

Thank you BBC News

WAR CRIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two days ago, an international war crimes tribunal found RUF (Revolutionary United Front) leaders Issa Sesay, 38, and Morris Kallon, 45, and Augustine Gbao, 60, guilty of war crimes during the decade-long Sierra Leone civil war. I usually read this information, keep it to myself, and joyfully spit it out when drunk with like-minded people who also feel that the entire continent of Africa is severely underreported in American news.

And while the international community must feel some sort of satisfaction seeing these three men convicted of mobilizing mass rape, mutilation, the killing of civilians, using child soldiers, and harnessing the diamond industry to fund their reign of terror, it is the marriage conviction that brings me great joy. According to BBC News, "the convictions mark the first time the forced marriage charge has been successfully handed down in an international court of law." Perhaps sooner than later we will finally see the entire institution of forced marriage--or any any abuse where one party does not give consent--dismantled and prosecuted to the true standards of international law.

Solvitur ambulando

"It is good to collect things, but it is better to go on walks."-- Anatole France

Sometimes I think I travel to make myself lonely, to give reason to my loneliness, as if wanderlust was ever a reason, to taste as much as possible and then disappear, starve off such pleasures; an urge that has always been there, a primordial thing which must be given entry into the tangible world. Like Rimbaud, "for a long time I prided myself I would possess every possible country," and I see now that no matter how many photographs, stories and passport stamps, it's not the people, the places, the names that I want to collect. I want to collect nothing. No nouns, but verbs. It's the walking, the simple moving that brought Man out of the Desert and dangled greener pastures before his eyes. The wandering fever.

I got nothing

"The presidency was a joyous experience, but as great as it was, nothing compares with Texas at sunset," Bush told a crowd of about 25,000. "Tonight I have the privilege of saying six words that I have been waiting to say for a while: It is good to be home."

Thank YOU G.W.

Inauguration Day Thoughts

Hilary Clinton smiling, waving, shaking hands, eyes set permanently wide in surprise!, all the while holding Bill’s hand: she needs an Oscar, not the Presidency

Upon seeing Dick Cheney wheeled down the hall and out the door: Ze Doomsday Machine! Why did you keep it a secret?

Barack Obama walks out of the darkness into the frozen day, lets slip a toothy boy’s grin: God Bless America

Homophobe Rick Warren peaching live on TV while Gene Robinson--whappens to be brave enough to be OUT of the closet--addressed God and the crowd of 500,000 in front of the Lincoln Memorial the day before: I thought they chose the gay to balance the bigot...

Elizabeth Alexander's weak start to a weaker poem: the sound of 2 million TVs all turned off at once

A "Barack Obama haircut"

A barber shop, named after the 44th US president, has opened in Khartoum, Sudan.

Finally, after years of bad hair, the rest of the world can mimic the moment he finally got it right.

Thank You BBC News

One Quick Thing Before I Fly Away Again In The Early A.M.

Copley Square, Boston, January 3, 2009

L'chaim!