Monthly Archives: December 2008

Even though I love writing, love reading, and love having books, I’m not a member of a book club.  Discussion clubs, yes; but book clubs, no.  However, I have friends who are in book clubs and have told me of the intense politicking that such memberships require.  We actually tried to start a book club, and it failed for…the very same reason.   (I hope I wasn’t an “ayatollah,” but things always look different when you’re evaluating yourself.).  Anyway, this article about book clubs from the NY Times made me laugh.

General Eric Shinseki

It looks like tomorrow we’re going to get our first Asian American department head nomination from the Obama administration. According to AFP, Obama will nominate former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki to head the Department of Veteran Affairs.  If you news junkies remember, Shinseki asked for “several hundred thousand” troops for Iraq when he was Army Chief of Staff.  The Bush Administration took offense at this estimate, since it meant that Iraq wasn’t going to be easy, and Rumsfeld and Company rewarded Shinseki’s correct assessment by announcing his successor, effectively undermining his authority and forcing his early retirement.  Of course, it later turned out that Shinseki was correct and the Bushies were wrong.  Had the Bush Administration followed Gen. Shinseki’s lead, we could’ve saved thousands of lives.  (We could’ve saved even more by not going there in the first place, but that, of course, is an entirely different issue…)

big WOWO himself

My son has big WOWO, and he also has a little plastic cat whom he calls Mao-Mao.  bigWOWO is about a foot in height, and Mao-Mao is about three inches tall.  Yesterday, my son was playing with the two toys.  He held the two toys one in each hand, and he made them face one another.  He then shook Mao-Mao up and down, prostrated it before big WOWO, and he said in a high pitched voice, “No!  No eat me!  No eat me!”  It was one of the cutest things ever.