printThis week’s column is two-pronged, or shall I say two-ponged (Crow is the gift that keeps giving):
“…Having unleashed “E-Crowli” into the ether, Sheryl should zip those lips over that overbite. The only thing that might lift the malodorous aura that has clung to Crow since she came out of the toilet with these schemes is the knowledge that her well-appointed bathroom sports a bidet. Or, conversely, that she practices “Islamic toilet etiquette.” The latter, at least, involves water! But don’t hold your breath. (Or maybe you should!)”…
“Speaking of a pain in the posterior, or is it a ‘Paine,’ Trotskyite-turned-neoconservative Christopher Hitchens has a new book out: Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man.’ Hitchens has dedicated it, “by permission,” to Jalal Talabani, the President of Iraq, whom he clearly considers the Paine of Mesopotamia. …
Hitchens wants to convince his readers that Paine’s proto-socialism—he advocated welfare financed by taxes—is quintessentially American. I disagree, but understand where this ex-Trotskyite transplant is coming from.
Still, leery as I am of Thomas Paine’s philosophical provenance, it seems egregious, even comical, for Hitchens to have paired Paine with Talabani.”
The complete column is “The Toilet Taliban and Other ‘Paines’ in the Posterior”