• Enlarge

Category: Sign of the Times

Palin, semi-hot on Newsweek cover, racks up book sales

Sarah Palin must be laughing all the way to the bank.

She's on the cover of Newsweek in a photo posed for a sports magazine. Cheap shot, she says of the magazine's photo pick.

Her book is No. 1 on Amazon.

And Palin's appearance on "Oprah" gave the talk show its highest rating in two years.

Here for story.

• Enlarge

Category: Sign of the Times

$4 tip to serve one drink?

The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain is starting to believe its own hype, that it's something special, and not just overpriced.

In a USA Today story, the chain recommends tipping a hotel bartender up to $4 for serving one drink.

Omni Hotels, on the other hand, recommend a reasonable $1, presumably even for a Laphroaig-class drink, or higher.

Here for story.

Category: Sign of the Times

Biden goes for laughs

This should be worth watching.

Veep Biden will be on the "Daily Show," Tuesday night on Comedy Central, 11 pm.

• Enlarge

Category: Sign of the Times

Health care:
Fat people strike back

Re critics who say fat people should be excluded from universal health care, assuming they'd be a liability.

The Big Ones are fighting back, saying fat doesn't necessarily mean you're not healthy.

Plus a lot of skinny people are sickly.

The book, "Fat!So?" details the basic creed of heavier folks.

Here for story.

Category: Sign of the Times

No tight pants or adultery -- or else

Extreme Islam, a sliver of the whole, is still nutty after all these years, firmly rooted in the 7th century.

If you want an idea of how strict Shariah, Islamic law, be:

"...the Shariah police will be wielding a new and more potent threat: death by stoning for adulterers," reported The New York Times out of Banda Aceh, a backward corner of Indonesia.

We'd have to stone half of Congress, were Osama and the boys to have their way here.

And then there's the public canings in Banda Aceh for gambling, the kind of thing that would all but kill Detroit's casino industry. The Times ran a photo of the Shariah police chastising a man for eating in a restaurant during prayer time.

Oh yeah, one district in Aceh banned tight pants for women. Officials even ordered 7,000 pairs of baggy pants. If the cops think you tush is too prominent, they're authorized to shred your clothes and give you government-issue, one of those 7,000 non-designer pairs.

Too bad. Most of Indonesia, a Muslim country, is moderate. Voters are rejecting Islamic extremists. Yet the hard core can wield power, as Aceh shows.

Here and here.

Category: Sign of the Times

TV news for the birds, literally

TV news is a often a marginal operation, dividing time equally between teasing stories, and actually reporting the stories.

But here's a clip worth watching:

• Enlarge

Category: Sign of the Times

Give Ballon Boy a break

No need for felony charges in the "Balloon Boy" case. Yes, the family screwed up in concocting a story that their kid might be airborne in a helium balloon.

Make the parents pay back any public money spent on the attempted rescue. But beyond that, weigh any jail time against the harm of breaking up a family, however kooky.

At some point, government must concede its interests on behalf of families. Prosecutors have a lot of discretion in these matters, and can be publicity-seeking hard guys, or humane. Justice and law are not necessarily synonymous.

Marc Rich, Scooter Libby, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were let off the hook. Nobody prosecuted U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for skipping out on taxes he owed. And currently it looks as if Congressman Charlie Rangel, after flouting the tax laws on several occasions, is headed for only a wrist slap.

So let's give the Heene family a break, too.

Here for latest.

• Enlarge

Category: Sign of the Times

Michigan, Michigan State: Man and beast

It's died down, the hoopla over this year's Michigan State football win over the University of Michigan. But its an ongoing story.

A reporter once collected comments on the rivalry, inviting alumni of each to opine on the opposite number. I forget my remark. But one of the best stuck with me.

"The difference between Michigan and Michigan State is the difference between man and beast," quipped the late Malcolm Carron, former president of the University of Detroit. As I recall, he had doctorate from U. of M.

Or this quiz:

Q. How far is East Lansing from Ann Arbor?

A. About 90 miles northwest and 100 years ahead.

Then there's the one about U. of M. women, but I dare not...

• Enlarge

Category: Sign of the Times

"Ignorant" American writers stiffed in Nobel award

Another European, Herta Mueller, wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. If you haven't heard of her, you're among billions.

The inward-looking Europe-based selection committees favors their own kind, perhaps because they are ill-read in other world literatures. So Europeans have dominated recent literature awards.

Partly due to an announced anti-American bias.

"You can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world," Horace Engdahl, the top dog in the Nobel operation, said in a recent AP interview.

Plus he said American writers have a strain of "ignorance" that impedes their work. Under those rules, it'll be hard for Detroit's own Jeffrey Eugenides ("Middlesex") to win. Or Wally Lamb ("The Hour I First Believed").

We shouldn't feel too bad. The Nobel boys three times failed to give the Peace Prize to Mahatma Gandhi, even though MG was the 20th Century embodiment of peaceful movements. He wrote the book.

But they did give the Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter, who had concentrated on peace between Israel and Palestinians -- a peace which doesn't exist and never will.

As for the literature award, it often goes to obscure authors with few sales, a way for the selection committee to pretend they know more than book buyers, the people who actually read and support literature. Over the years the committee managed to overlook some great writers including Joyce, Proust, and Nabokov.

Among the buzz for the prize this year was Joyce Carol Oates ("Blonde"), who once taught at the University of Detroit and the University of Windsor.

But she didn't have a chance, given Engdahl, of the Nobel panel, saying American writers are ignorant.

Engdahl later said he was surprised his slur caused hard feelings. How obtuse and out of touch can you be, Horace?

Here for story.

• Enlarge

Category: Sign of the Times

Taylor Swift affair: Unsavory denouement

re Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift as she accepted a music award. He said Beyonce should have won. And now Beyonce defends West, saying he was just "standing up for art."

Pretty arrogant comment, Beyonce suggesting her work is "art" and Swift's work is not. How about a little grace, darlin'.

President Obama had it right.

Here for story.