The Dish

Another scene of the disgusting and desperate brutality of the military junta in Iran:

Ezra builds on Weigel's critique:

One of the jobs the media does is deciding what true things count as news and what true things do not count as news. That should be easy, but since newspapers need to sell copies and cable programs need to secure viewers, there's a tension with the fact that some news is boring, while some not-news is really interesting. Palin sneaks onto the front page because she seems to square that circle: Her utterances seem like news (former vice presidential candidate and 2012 hopeful Sarah Palin says …) but actually aren't. The continuing irony of all this is that for all the enmity between Palin and the press, no one has a closer and more mutually beneficial relationship than Palin has with the media, and no equivalently powerless political figure receives anything near the free coverage that the media lavishes on her.

Lie after lie after lie after lie. Don't take my word for it. That's the analysis of Richard Fineberg, whose credentials are as follows:

For three decades he has researched and reported on economic and environmental issues related to Alaska and global petroleum development. Fineberg came to Alaska in 1969 to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in political science at the University of Alaska, leaving that position in 1971 to devote full time to freelance reporting.

He has spent much of the last four decades observing and reporting on Alaska’s North Slope oil development for newspapers, public agencies, environmental and other public interest groups and even occasional developers. He has served three governors – the first as a budget and policy analyst, the second as a senior advisor on oil and gas and the third as a consultant. The third was Sarah Palin.

So he knows what he's talking about, and knows that Palin doesn't. Money quote:

The following piece focuses on Palin’s inaccuracies and distortions in Going Rogue regarding the bill on which I consulted. That production tax measure, which she dubbed “ACES” (Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share) was one of Sarah Palin’s three major pieces of legislation during her first year in office. Based on my first-hand experience, I can tell you that Sarah Palin is misinforming the public on ACES – as she does on so many other issues. At http://www.finebergresearch.com you can find background and documentation, as well as previous posts that will tell you about my gradual disillusionment with this maiden of misinformation.

Read the whole thing. Since Adam Bellow edited a book full of errors and lies, when is he going to take responsibility for it?

Photo: A Yemeni Al-Qaeda suspect attends a hearing at the State-Security Court in Sanaa on December 29, 2009. By Khaled Fazaa/AFP/Getty Images.

The Times of London has the good sense to follow the Dish and name Neda Soltan the person of the year. Money quote:

“Even if a bullet goes through my heart it’s not important,” she told Caspian Makan, her fiancé. “What we’re fighting for is more important. When it comes to taking our stolen rights back we should not hesitate. Everyone is responsible. Each person leaves a footprint in this world.”

In the rush to become the first Latin-American country to have a same-sex civil marriage, Argentina just beat out Mexico City.

A reader writes:

Opened the gift my sister gave to me for Christmas – your book, "The View Through Your Window." I didn't know what to expect being familiar with you through Huff Post only … I spent the morning mesmerized by the pictures (occasionally looking through my window at the fluffy flakes coming down in a Chicago suburb.)

Profound, simple and the best gift I received this Christmas!

Sometimes all it takes is a little idea…

It really is much more than the sum of its parts. The book goes across the world from dawn to dusk chronologically. The series comes alive this way, each page charting the path of the sun, including every season and every state and several continents.

Truly, it blew me away when I first saw it, and it's a perfect book for your coffee table or toilet or waiting room, or anywhere anyone needs a truly uplifting and yet calming distraction. You can preview it here and buy it here.

This Australian version of Lassie is aptly described by a YouTube commenter: "best fun show to watch when ur high lmao." In Britain, I grew up on this stuff and was never high and loved every minute of it.

Apart from the usual bile directed at president Obama, who is largely irrelevant to events in Iran, it's a useful summary.

 

For some reason, I've been much less suicidal this holiday season than usual. But I know that it's a painful time for many. A season when one is supposed to be happy can make sadness all the more acute. And, of course, there are some brutal memories that sometimes come to the fore at this time of year. PZ Myers writes a rather beautiful post here, illustrated by the brilliant cartoonist Mark Tatulli (above), of how the sudden death of his father on December 26, 1993 still haunts him at this time:

One of the lies we always tell ourselves is that the pain will go away with time, that we'll get over it, that time heals all wounds, and it's not true.

Every loss is forever raw, and we can feel it all again with just a thought or a reminder, like a Christmas phone call to the family. The older you get, the more of these moments of grief you accumulate, and they never leave you.

My father was cremated, and there is no location I can batten upon as a focus, no place for flowers. And strangely enough, florist shops always remind me of my father, too; he took me to a little shop when I was a teenager, and helped me pick out flowers for my first date with the lovely young lady who would several years later be my wife…and it was this same florist shop I went to almost 20 years later to pick out flowers for his funeral. So I'm reduced to this, honoring a memory with an evanescent scattering of electrons on a medium my father never knew anything about. But hey, it's no more transient than petals on a grave, now is it?

Hang in, PZ. And everyone else who's hurting right now.