In the words of Monty Python...

And now, for something completely different, I thought I'd share a link to a fantastic and simple recipe for potato latkes I posted on another blog, Grandma's Recipe Books.

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Far afield today, I find a book review at a site, The Soul is not a Smithy, I've never visited before. NSFW warning.

The Connoisseur's Guide to Sushi by Dave Lowry

This is probably the most comprehensive guide to the art of Sushi in existence today. It is filled with facts and stories and appears to be the result of many years of research (probably not onerous at all) on the subject, from a man who has also written a book about martial arts etiquette. He relates just how meticulous and particular a good Sushi chef must be, in order to properly present even the correct rice. I suspect the package I pick up in the grocery store doesn't meet these standards.

"Sushi rice has to be just glutinous enough to stick together, but with each grain retaining its own identity, kind of like kids at a junior high school dance...It should have a glowing luster (tsuya), a pleasant stickiness (nebari), and the correct taste (aji)."

Sushi has been around for about eight hundred years, give or take, in some form or another, but it's really taken off all around the world in the last twenty.

"The history of wrapped sushi rolls, or maki sushi, goes back to the vegetarian cookery that evolved in 13th-century Kyoto temples. Buddhist monks there lived lives of piety, austerity, and rigid discipline, but they were not averse to a decent meal. They created the technique of wrapping or rolling foods in sheets of dried nori seaweed."

I always run into little tidbits where my life experiences and reading cross each other in the oddest ways.  On the topic of Oshi Sushi (pressed sushi):

"The Portuguese arived in Osaka around 1545 in galleons, or bateira. Even though this method of sushi preparation existed for hundreds of years before the Portuguese ships appeared on the scene, that's where battera sushi gets its name. The molds used for making it look like the Portuguese galleons."

My wife and I have friends in Portugal, and spent time there a few years ago, so we've seen a few bateira.

Lowry has a wry humor. Wry is even part of his name:

"Several restaurants in that city (Kyoto) now claim to have been the original purveyors of the dish (battera sushi), or have the original recipe, or to be descendants of someone who was a really, really good friend of a dishwasher in the Imperial Palace, or some such."

and

"Much like an Andy Warhol print, commercially produced sheets of nori have two sides. Unlike the Warhol, it is possible to reliably distinguish one from the other."

I must confess, however, that I was unable to finish the entire book. I was really only looking for a guide that would help me as a sushi novice to order more confidently; I really didn't need the graduate level course. If you do, however, I highly recommend Lowry's masterpiece.

Witch World by Andre Norton

Simon Tregare is a professional soldier who has somehow gotten into trouble with some criminals, and expects to be killed very soon, so he is enjoying a last meal at leisure. He is approached at his table by a man he knows only by reputation, who claims he can extricate him permanently from the mess he's landed in, never to be tracked down by the thugs pursuing him. The key to this, of course, turns out to be a method by which he is transported to an entirely different world than ours, without any way to return. Seeing no other course of action available to him which will save his life, he consents, and is sent off to...The Witch World!
A venerable tradition in 50s and 60s science fiction, the mysterious transport to another world, it was used by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his novels of John Carter of Mars and Carson of Venus, and by John Norman in his Gor series (gotta review some of those one day), and by several others that I can recall. Sure saves on long space voyages, anyway.

Upon arrival, Simon is immediately greeted by a troop of soldiers chasing a pitiful girl dressed only in rags, across a blasted heath. What else is a classical hero to do but to defend and rescue the "princess"? He kills a couple of the men with his pistol (which amazingly still works in this world of magic), then helps the girl take refuge on a cliffside, where she demonstrates that she's not just some poor little servant wench, but has mystical powers of her own - she calls down a thunderstorm upon her pursuers. Drenched by the storm that does not pass quickly, Simon keeps her warm throughout the night with the heat of his own body. Naw, get your minds out of the gutter, this was written in the sixties, and heroes back then didn't get to have sex...ever. Well, maybe offstage after the end of the book.

Turns out the witch, whose name we don't find out until the final pages of the novel, we just call her Lady or "the witch", is one of the leaders of a nation, Estcarp, beset by enemies on all sides, and Simon will join her loyal underlings in defending his new home. The witches that rule Estcarp have special powers, to one degree or another, such as calling down storms, casting illusions, creating love potions, and possibly a few other things I've forgotten.

They only maintain their powers if they abstain from sexual activity (I told you this was the early sixties, before the sexual revolution), and one of the innovative ways their enemies neutralize them is to subject any captured witches to gang rape (again, mostly offstage and euphemistically). I'm not sure how all this actually is supposed to work. First, if they lose their powers when they have sex, how has the race survived? Did they nominate one witch in each generation to be the breeder and have lots of children? Second, I can kind of understand the bargain of giving up your magic powers as a trade for romantic love, your focus would no longer be on your magic, and the buildup of energies would be dissipated...fine. But to lose your powers as an unwilling participant? Well, maybe due to trauma, but in that case the voluntary act wouldn't or shouldn't be a disqualifier. Anyway, like much in SF and Fantasy at times, it doesn't have to make sense, it's only there so that Lady can be rescued from a "fate worse than death", anyway.

There's lots of battles and intrigue, but after decades of reading both good and bad fantasy, I'm afraid I no longer have as high an opinion of Norton's writing as I once did. There's far better stories out there, and this one just seems tired, fifty years later. I was going to re-read the whole series, but I think I'll pass now.

Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs

Sometimes, it seems like Mercy can't go anywhere without getting into trouble. She and her mate, Adam's daughter, Jessie, decide to go out after Thanksgiving dinner for a little Black Friday shopping, and get more trouble than they bargained for. Mercy suffers a panic attack for no apparent reason (it comes to me later that it's triggered by her psychic tie with Adam), and when they have the tow truck driver drop her and Jessie at the garage, they find Gabriel and Ben have taken refuge there from a group of rogue Cantrip agents who have taken most of Adam's pack into custody.

The Cantrip deserters want Adam to assassinate for them a senator who does not agree with their agenda, and they need all the leverage they can get to force him to their will. It's obvious that there would be no better leverage than to capture Mercy and Jessie, so it is essential that they stay out of the agents' clutches. But Warren's partner, Kyle, is already being held hostage and interrogated to find out where the "girls" might hide, so Mercy sends Jessie and Gabriel off to stay with Gabriels family, and asks her half-fae friend, Tad (Zee's son) to watch over them, then she and Ben set off to free Kyle and interrogate the hostage takers. To help, she recruits the vampire, Stefan, and together they are more than a match for a handful of humans.

Mercy, who is in some strange metaphysical or metaphorical way the daughter of the Amerindian god, Coyote, gains some interesting new powers in this novel. Her mixture of using Indian magic with Christian symbols for banishing ghosts seems like a new thing in urban fantasy, unless you count Anita Blake mixing her crosses and necromantic powers, I suppose. So, the bad guys are poisoning the werewolves with silver to keep them weak, and Adam is using his alpha magic to absorb the silver into his own body. When Mercy spirit walks to be with Adam, she ends up "eating" a large quantity of silver, thereby taking it away from Adam and the pack, and giving her nothing more than an upset stomach and a few minor side effects, hardly debilitating.

When the rogue agents betray a band of mercenaries they hired to help kidnap the pack members, the mercenaries make it easy for Adam and his wolves to escape and take vengeance on their captors. But that's not the end of the story, as the money and power behind the Cantrip people belongs to a powerful vampire, who wants control of the entire country, and a return to the time when vampires were at the top of the food pyramid. So Mercy and her friends have to fight one last supernatural battle to decide the fate of America.

Good action, an interesting plot, and some neat new skills for Mercy.

Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton

Uncharted Stars is the somewhat uninspired sequel to The Zero Stone. Most of the exciting elements that were present in the first novel are missing here, and the only scene that contains a great deal of action is when Murdoc and Eet invade Waystar, the secret lair of the Guild built on a Forerunner space station in a dead sector of space. The rest of seems like Norton felt she had to finish the duo's story, but really wasn't all that excited about it.

Flush with the loot from their reward for turning over the zero stone ring to the Patrol, Murdoc and Eet have purchased a ship, and are trying to find a pilot. Somebody has blacklisted them, however, so they have to search the dregs of the spaceport to find a drug-addled delisted pilot, Rizk (risky?) to take them on the next stage of their treasure hunt. Murdoc's first trading venture doesn't go as well as he had hoped, when he is out-bargained by a more experienced trader, so he makes a quick change of plans to turn a profit after all.

But, when he returns to civilization with some beautiful and valuable greenstones, he finds out that his goods have been blacklisted as well, and he must once more turn to the seedy underside of the trade, using the knowledge of his father's Guild connections to find a less reputable buyer for his wares. While dispensing of the stones, Eet's telepathic powers alert them to a pirate raid that is about to take place on a Zacathan archaeological site on another world, so they rush off to try to warn the Zacathans, but arrive a bit too late for all except one survivor of the raid.

The thieves made off with several valuable Forerunner artifacts, including a bowl which is actually a star map containing clues to the location of the source of the zero stones and their unimaginable powers. Murdoc, Eet, Rizk and Zilwrich (the Zacathan) rush off in pursuit of the pirates and, quite improbably, are able to infiltrate Waystar and steal back the star map, so they can track down the zero stone home world.

The ending of the book contains a surprising twist, but the most surprising thing of all is that Eet and Murdoc never showed up again with further adventures. Norton must have decided to move on to newer things, though the interstellar cultures she uses as background here show up in many of her other novels.

The Zero Stone by Andre Norton

I'm fairly certain that everything that possibly could be said about this book has already been said at one point in time or another, since it was written by one of the early lights of SF back in the sixties. I loved Norton's works when I was just beginning to read SF, and this book and its sequel were two of my favorites, and when I was looking for a quick light read the other night, I knew rereading them would be a treat.

So, what can I say except that The Zero Stone has it all. There are espers and mutants and alien races both current and ancient, with civilizations living and fallen. There is murder and betrayal and a birthright usurped, with thieves guilds and free traders and the Space Patrol thrown in. Blackouts at blastoff and crashes with castaways. No sex and drugs and rock and roll, but young adult novels back in those days were pretty tame, so we can't fault Norton for that.

Murdoc Jern is an apprentice to a master gem trader as the story begins. His father, whose past was somewhat shady, arranged this training for him so that he could take over the family pawn shop some day, perhaps. When an offplanet death cult selects his master for their sacrifice, he flees for his life, and after seeking sanctuary in the temple of another god, he manages to buy passage for himself offworld with a ship of Free Traders. He apparently contracts a virulent plague and is quarantined, but the traders decide to space him, instead of putting him off ship somewhere isolated, so he flees with an unlikely ally, a mutant named Eet.

After being marooned on a jungle  planet where their commandeered landing boat crashes, they encounter primitive and hungry aliens, whom they manage to evade. Then they are chased and captured by the Guild, who believe that Murdoc posseses (and indeed he does) an artifact made by the Forerunners which is the key to great power for those who unlock its secrets. Then a space patrolman lands to investigate Guild activities in the area, and is captured as well. Eet and Murdoc find a way to escape, and take the patrolman along, too.

All the way, just great out of the frying pan into the fire action. Not deep, not philosophical, just fun.

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A book review on Financial Ducks in a Row.

Cold Magic by Kate Elliott

 I'm afraid I'm a bit late to the party here - this book has been on my to-read list for quite a while, and I just got it from the library last week. Kate Elliott has at least a dozen fantasy novels out, and this is the first I've read. One reason I mention this is that the book (and series) seems to be an alternate history historical fantasy, and I spent some time while reading it thinking about diversion points from our own history (aside from the whole magic thing) which I am sure have been thoroughly discussed on Ms. Elliot's fan sites already, so if you want the real scoop you may want to do a bit of looking around out there, but...

One thing that seems to be missing in this world is the entire back story of Judeo Christianity, as if the entire Jewish people were never a significant factor. One minor quibble with this thought is that Elliott appears to use the standard A.D. dating system when she identifies the time period when the stories take place, but there is no mention of Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church, or anything at all related in the story. The role of traders and merchants diasporically cast through the world is taken over by the Phoenicians, known to themselves as the Kena'ani, to a tribe of whom the heroine of the tale, Catherine "Cat" Hassi Barrahal, belongs.

In Elliott's own words, some of the back story:

"Two thousand years ago, the Romans and Phoenicians had battled to a standstill, and in the end the Romans kept their land empire and the Phoenicians kept their ports and traded across the seas without impediment. Over time, as the empire of the Romans weakened, the Celtic chiefs broke away one by one and restored their ancient principalities and lordships...retained many things Roman: roads, bridges, aqueducts, a calendar, laws, literacy, and the city ways and city speech of the Romans.

When, about four hundred years ago, the Persians swept across the north of Africa and conquered the trading city of Qart Hadast, many Kena'ani merchant families were forced to flee to other ports and cities...

About one hundred years after the Persian conquests, the salt plague broke out south of the Saharan Desert, when ghouls crawled up from the depths of the salt mines and in their invading hordes tore apart the empire of Mali...

A fleet from the crumbling Mali Empire sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, guided by Phoenician navigators. They reached the distant western continent, which was later named Amerike...there they met previously unknown human nations and...the venturesome trolls...

Twenty-five years ago, a young Iberian captain who called himself Camjiata rose from obscurity during one of the periodic wars between Iberia and Rome and decided that Europa would be better off if he ruled all of it...In the end the mage Houses combined with the Second Alliance to overthrow him...they imprisoned him on an island and left him to rot."

Into this maelstrom falls our heroine when she is "sold" to one of the mage Houses and married unwillingly to one of its powerful young mages, Andevai, who himself was adopted into the House when his mage powers were discovered at puberty, but who grew up a hunter in a village of peasants. She is whisked away from her family in the city Andurnam (somewhere in what we'd call Great Britain) in the midst of incipient uprisings by the workers in the area, who demand better conditions and more rights, such as Camjiata once promised them.

When she arrives at their destination, the mages discover that they have been deceived, and that Cat was offered up to them in lieu of the eldest daughter of the Barrahals, her cousin Beatrice "Bee". Beatrice is suspected to have prophetic powers, and the mages desire to bind her to themselves, so the head of the House tells Andevai he must kill Cat to dissolve the marriage and return to Andurnam to take Beatrice as his wife instead. Cat flees for her life, and encounters many interesting people and strange adventures along the route of her escape.

This is a big, complex book, which appears to merely be the beginning of a big, complex story arc of the Spiritwalker trilogy. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will be picking up a copy of the next book at the library as soon as possible.

Dark Road Rising by P.N. Elrod

Dark Road Rising appears to be the final novel in the Vampire Files series by Elrod. There may be a novella or short story (seen on Goodreads) out there, but I'm guessing it will be a bit tough to locate. There are a number of loose ends from earlier books to be wrapped up in this novel, and for the most part they get taken care of by the end.

The New York mob thinks that Whitey Kroun is dead, killed in a car bomb attack. They send some of their top enforcers, who were friends with Kroun, down to Chicago to investigate and punish those responsible, whom they perceive to be Jack. Whitey, who survived due to the fact that he is also a vampire, would rather remain dead and get out of the mob the only way possible, but in order to save Jack's life, he has to reveal that he has survived the blast.

Jack wants to find out more from Whitey about "life" as a vampire, but we come to realize that Whitey has some serious gaps in his memory, and his knowledge of vampiric abilities is spotty, and he seems to have lost any recollection of how he became one. Whitey was a truly nasty piece of work when he was truly alive, but now as an undead he seems to be pretty decent, with a reluctance to kill in the unemotional way that made him a great mob enforcer. He drags Jack along as he tries to find out more about his past, and what he uncovers there is truly horrifying.

It seemed a little odd that Jack started out as a pretty decent guy, and remained much the same after his transformation, while Whitey began as a monster, but was much improved after death. Perhaps it had something to do with the bullet in his head which he never was able to get rid of, which also keeps him from vanishing like Jack does.

A pretty good story to close out the saga, while leaving the door open for further adventures with Jack & Bobbi in Hollywood someday.

Good Night, Mr. Holmes by Carole Nelson Douglas

I'm fairly certain that Fred Saberhagen was the first author to portray Count Dracula in a positive light, though he was soon followed by a host of others - a flood even - making vampires into sympathetic protagonists. The next may have been Susan Rice, actually, but I digress. I'm also certain that there have been many who have piggybacked upon the Sherlock Holmes mythos over the years, but Douglas may have been one of the first of the late twentieth century to do so, at least in novel form. She, at least, takes a road less traveled, yet similar to Saberhagen's in telling the tales from the point of view of Penelope Huxleigh, Irene Adler's closest confidante.

In Good Night, Mr. Holmes, we get the ladies' perspective on the tag end of the affair from A Study in Scarlet, and then the entirety of A Scandal in Bohemia, which turns out to be far less scandalous than Sir Doyle describes in his reportage. While Miss Adler does not have nearly the powers of observation we find in Mr. Holmes, she is possessed of an intellect and tenacity that serves her quite well in unraveling such small mysteries as she encounters in her travels, such as deducing the identity of the assassin who is slowly poisoning the King of Bohemia, with whose son she is carrying on a mostly innocent affair.

This tale never really rises to the level of intellectual puzzle we find in Doyle's tales, but it's an entertaining new set of eyes, exploring some lesser known figures of Holmes' times. Pick it up at your local library and enjoy an evening or two of innocent pleasure.

When Diplomacy Fails by Michael Z. Williamson

I'm sorry to say that When Diplomacy Fails is probably the least remarkable of all of Williamson's stories set in the Freehold universe. The only thing I can think of is that it's meant to be a transitional  book, getting things ready for some new, politically twisty and explosively good action in his next novel.

Shortly after successfully protecting Caron Prescot from multiple assassination attempts, earning her gratitude and, in Aramis' case a bit more, Ripple Creek gets an assignment to protect Bureau of State Minister Joy Highland as she goes on a diplomatic tour on a very troubled planet. A willful bureacrat used to getting her own way turns out to be just as challenging to protect as a headstrong young heiress, and given the sheer number of political and religious factions on Mtali there are plenty of folks who would be happy to see her dead, including some factions within the UN who see her as a threat to their candidate for the top spot in a coming election.

There are plenty of gun battles, a kidnapping, and Elke gets to blow stuff up a lot, so the action doesn't drag at all, once the stage is set. I just don't feel as if the characters were developed more thoroughly, the plot had no major twists, and I just felt as if it wasn't up to Williamson's usual standards.

Song in the Dark by P.N. Elrod

Jack has been suffering some serious ill effects from his torture by Hog Bristow, blinding headaches when he attempts to hypnotize someone, panic attacks, and other PTSD-type symptoms. He's also lost control of his feeding a couple of times (fortunately only on cattle) and has become aware of his nearly overwhelming desire to enjoy the pleasures of taking human blood instead of animals'. Charles, his best friend, and Bobbi, his girlfriend, are walking on eggshells around him, trying to help him when he won't even admit that he's got problems.

Into this situation, throw the additional complication of Gordy getting shot, and having to hide out while he recovers, putting Jack in charge of his criminal enterprise temporarily. New York has sent Whitey Kroun to Chicago to investigate the death of Hog Bristow at Jack's hands, and everyone is certain that Kroun will simply decide that Jack must "pay" for his transgression. But Jack forces himself nearly to the brink of disaster by using his hypnotic powers to convince Kroun to leave him in charge until Gordy gets well, that Hog got only what he had coming, and that he and Whitey are good friends.

The unexpected side effect of this is that Jack gains a sidekick, or so it seems, when Whitey hangs around and spends his time hanging out with Jack at his nightclub, Lady Crymsyn. Some of Gordy's henchmen aren't too thrilled with Jack's takeover, and when he steps in to stop the beating of a singer with big gambling debts, Alan Caine, he earns the enmity of the thug involved, Hoyle. Hoyle and his buddies retaliate against Jack, kidnapping him and taking him to the woods for a beating, but Jack turns the tables, and delivers his own style of beatdown, due to his vampire strength. Unfortunately, his squeamishness when it comes to killing causes him to leave the boys alive, and they continue to plague him throughout the rest of the book.

When Caine's strangled body turns up in his dressing room soon after, Jack and Whitey team up to keep the cops out of things, and to try to find out who really killed the man, who was not as popular with all the folks he owed money to as he was with the ladies, except for his ex-wife, who is on the short list of suspects, owing her many months of back-alimony.

Jack's fight against his demons, inner and outer, makes an interesting tale with a very surprising twist at the end.

Imager's Battalion by L.E. Modesitt

So, the thing this book reminds me of greatly is grinding out levels in MMOs. Quaeryt is now a subcommander in King  Bhayar's army, on the move towards the heart of Bovaria, where they will attempt to defeat the Kharst's forces. He continues to try to improve the skills of his small band of imagers along the way, and they fight in small skirmishes against ambushing forces, for the most part, until near the end of the campaign, when Quaryt and his band may be required to sacrifice everything for the sake of Telaryn.

Quaeryt's marriage to Bhayar's sister, Vaelora, continues happily along, despite their separation. She must remain behind in the capital city, Solis, with Bhayar's wife, Aelina, to keep the High Holders and Bhayar's ministers from building their own empires while the king is in the field with his armies. He and Vaelora keep in touch by letter, discussing obliquely all matters political, and not so obliquely their love for one another. The political gamesmanship goes on in the field as well, when the field marshall in charge of the army and his cronies try to put Quaeryt's battalion in harm's way as much as possible, hoping to rid themselves of one who has so much influence with Bhayar.

Not the most inspired novel in the series, but a necessary novel to get Quaeryt where Modesitt wants him, I suppose.

New Zealand's North Island by Lonely Planet

 So, it's a little difficult to review a travel guide. You really won't know how good it is until you're in the middle of your trip and find out how helpful it really was. I'll be able to supply some feedback on that in July sometime. As travel guides go, however, I think this one stacks up pretty well, though my favorites are usually Rick Steeves' guides to Europe.

Lonely Planet's guides seem to be written for a younger, hipper crowd than for a middle-aged fellow like myself. As my wife will tell you, though, I'm so cheap...er...frugal that I really enjoy finding a guide that focuses on the lower end of the lodging scale, with lots of hostels, B&Bs and campgrounds listed, and not so many five star hotels. I probably won't feel bold enough to get into the radical adventure touring they feature at times, but a few excursions, like rappelling down into a cave and rafting through glow worm lit passages sounded intriguing.

The time of year we're going, winter in New Zealand, probably won't be ideal for tramping (hiking) or sunning ourselves on beaches or surfing the breaks, but we do love the coastline, and will probably spend plenty of time there, as well as visiting as many hot springs as possible. Plenty of winery tours are listed, so that should keep us occupied for a while.

One of the great things in all modern travel guides is the abundance of web sites listed, which I'm bookmarking like crazy. The only downside to this guide is that I found the maps to be a little short on detail - it really needs a larger map tucked into a pocket in back, for the big picture and overall itinerary development.

Cold Streets by P.N. Elrod

It all starts with a kidnapping. A group of thugs kidnap the mentally handicapped daughter of a society matron, so Escott and Jack ride to the rescue. Jack uses his ability to ride along unseen in the vehicle that picks up the ransom money to track the kidnappers' gang back to the farmhouse where they are holding he girl, incapacitates the men, then hauls them off to the police station, hypnotized into giving full confessions, and takes the girl home to her mother. Joy all the way around.

Except that the ringleader of the kidnappers is a sociopath, and there are two categories of people upon whom Jack's hypnotic talents fail to work - drunks and crazies. So with the help of some sleazy lawyers and loyal friends, the leader, Dugan, gets bailed out of jail and appears to be on the road to acquital. Jack and Escott won't tolerate this, so a good deal of the novel is spent trying to send Dugan to jail instead of letting him expose Jack as a vampire - he wasn't hypnotized, and he remembers everything he saw.

On the gangland side of things, the bosses in New York are a little worried about revenues being down in Chicago, so they send one of their more brutal bosses, Hog Bristol, down to find out why, and to take over the territory from Gordy if he doesn't get satisfactory answers. Of course, Hog's a jerk, and nothing Gordy says will stop him from taking over Chicago. When either Hog or one of his men guns Gordy down in the street, Jack ends up taking over Gordy's operation temporarily to keep a New York takeover at bay.

It all ends up in a brutal scene after Jack is caught unaware by Bristol and his men, while he's chatting with a now captive Dugan. Again, I ask how in the world a vampire whose hearing is so acute he can eavesdrop on conversations across the room, and hear the changes in the heart rate of a blackjack dealer can let three goons get the drop on him. In the end, to escape the slaughterhouse where Bristol takes Jack to be tortured, Jack has to slip over the edge into madness for a time. We'll see in the next book if he's able to ever recover from his ordeal and what he had to do to survive.

Money Rules by Jean Chatzky

Jean Chatzky is a very successful writer on the topic of personal finance. I'd heard her name taken in vain not so very long ago on an infotainment segment, where the "expert" proceeded to rant about the horrible advice people like Chatzky, Suze Ormond, Robert Kiyosaki, and Dave Ramsey peddle. For the most part, I've found the advice of Ormond and Ramsey to be fairly sound, though I have taken issue with a few bits and pieces here and there. I got a copy of this Chatzky ebook along with a copy of Willmaker I picked up at Costco, so I thought I'd check her out.

The books was an extremely quick read, just a series of short rules about money, with only a paragraph or two about each rule. Again, for the most part I have no problems with recommending Chatzky's rules to most people, most of the time, but for more complex financial situations, some of them are simply going to be inapplicable, and more professional advice required - probably paid professional advice.

Some bits that caught my attention as I buzzed through:

Rule 12. Save more with every raise.

I've followed this one for a number of years, and passed it on to my children. At least one of them that I know of has been following it, and are well-started on building their retirement nest egg. When I get a raise at work, I take half of that raise and just add it to my automated 401K contribution. I never miss it! My paycheck still goes up, and my retirement plan looks better, too. I highly recommend following this rule. You could also shift a portion of every raise towards other savings goals, like saving for a down payment on a house, a new car, or your kids' college funds. Avoid lifestyle creep - don't spend all of your raise.

Rule 21. Save for something

Chatzky says to put a name to your goals and put aside savings for those things in particular. Here's one, aside from my retirement, and my grandkids' college funds, that I don't do so well. I just put money away "for a rainy day", and when I need money for an emergency, a down payment, a major purchase, or whatever, I have money in my general savings account (usually) to pay for it. I'd really like to do a better job of this, but I just hate having multiple savings accounts at multiple banks.

Rule 29. Use your emergency savings for emergencies.

Chatzky says you should always take money from your emergency fund to pay for emergencies, like the car breaking down, or unexpected medical expenses, and that you should not put it on your credit card. So, this is where I break from people like her and Dave Ramsey. I put everything I possibly can on my credit card and pay it off at the end of the month, taking money from my emergency savings for anything charged on it that was actually an emergency, or unexpected. In the first place, I get a nice cash back bonus every month from my credit card company. There have evidently been studies performed that show that people spend more money when they use a credit card than when they pay cash, but I firmly believe that I'm not one of them. My wife will tell you I'm so tight I squeak. Second, the credit card statement, and the card company's utility that categorizes expenses, are a nice way to actually keep track of what I spent, when I spent it, etc. I have an emergency fund. I use my credit card. I love the cash back! Sue me.

Rule 34. The best cost-cutting tool is a good night's sleep.

Chatzky recommends that you sleep on it before making a purchase decision. If you don't feel the urgent need to buy after a good night's sleep, you didn't need it that badly to begin with. I agree totally. In fact, I have a list of things that I think I need to purchase that I carry around with me. If it's not an urgent immediate need, sometimes things stay on the list for months before I get around to buying them. At that point, I run across the item used, at a deep discount, borrow it from a friend, be given the item as a gift, or I may simply never buy it, removing it from the list at some point, as the need has passed.

Rule 38. Pay bills as they come in.

Having a big pile of unpaid bills is a huge stress inducer. I used to let my bills stack up on the kitchen counter until payday, then sit down and write out all the checks at once. Then, I moved to writing out the check the day the bill arrived, putting it in the envelope, ready to mail, with a post-it note showing the due date, and placing the bill in the mail a week before it was due. Now, for the most part, all of my bill paying is fully automated, with my bank mailing out the checks for me. I check up on things every so often, and have to go online to enter the amounts of variable bills once in a while, but it's a very painless process.

Rule 47. Shop with a list.

If you make a shopping list, and only buy the things you have put on the list when you go shopping, you'll save a lot of money by avoiding those impulse buys. I am a list freak. My shopping list is even arranged in the order the items appear at my favorite grocery store. I have lists for everything, from shopping, to daily tasks, to packing for a camping trip or a trip overseas. They're all in my documents folder, and I can print out the type desired within moments of the need. Yeah, I'm way compulsive about lists.

Rule 53. It's not about having it all. It's about having what you value most.

Chatzky believes many people have regrets about how they spent their money, down the road. She says one way to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again is to keep track of your feelings about your purchases, so that when you have a bad experience with a vendor, a brand, or a meal, you won't buy there again. Pretty smart idea. I've been journalling my life for about ten years now, and I can go back and search the archives to find out when and where I purchased things, whether I was happy with them, and what the name of that restaurant where I had the most awesome French Dip of my life was. It's quite handy.

Rule 91. Don't take financial advice from someone just because they're wealthy (or related).

Chatzky doesn't elaborate on this rule at all. I'd love to know her thinking on this one. First, would it make sense to take financial advice from someone who is poor? I don't think so. I always thought that you should get financial advice from people who have achieved the type of financial success that you want to achieve. On a parallel note, I wouldn't take relationship advice from someone who has been divorced multiple times; I'd rather hear from someone who stayed married for fifty-plus years. Second, would it make more sense to take financial advice from a stranger, rather than someone who actually loves or cares about you. I'm not entirely sure this rule holds water. I think I'll have to go look at what she has to say about it online somewhere. Maybe I'll get back to you.

All in all, a quick read, worth the time, and there's definitely some great principles here.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D.

 A few weeks ago, I went to a seminar taught by a woman who has, for the last thirteen years, been in charge of an organization which coordinates the efforts of over four thousand volunteers who help people who are suffering from poverty, usually of the temporary situational type, but sometimes generational. A couple of books were mentioned in the talk. The first one was When Helping Hurts, which I reviewed earlier, and the other one was Dr. Payne's book. I immediately put them on hold at the local library, and both of them have proven thought-provoking, at the very least.

The book is definitely designed for the benefit of educators, and the latter two thirds focus on effective strategies for teaching the children of generational poverty. Payne defines poverty as "the extent to which an individual does without resources." Contrary to the narrow view most of us have of poverty, she attributes continuing poverty not merely to lack of financial resources, but perhaps more importantly to a lack of emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, support systems, relationships, and the hidden rules which govern behavior and interactions within a class of citizens.

In fact, that was the chart that intrigued me enough to put this book on my list in the first place, the "hidden rules" of the poor, the middle class, and the wealthy. Without the types of resources mentioned above, and an understanding of the hidden rules, Payne asserts, it is extraordinarily difficult to move upward in financial class.

For example, for the poor, their possessions are people, for the middle class; things, for the wealthy; one-of a kind objects or legacies. For the poor, money is to used and spent, for the middle class; managed, and for the wealthy conserved and invested. When it comes to food, for the poor, the key question is "Did you get enough?", for the middle class, is "Did you like it?" and for the wealthy, "Was it presented well?" With respect to time, for the poor the present is the most important and decisions are made for the moment based on feelings or survival. For the middle class, the future is most important and decisions are made based on future consequences. For the wealthy, traditions and history are most important, and decisions are often made on the basis of tradition and decorum.

Payne also talks quite a bit about the role of language and story for the classes. A 1967 study (Joos) found that every language has five registers: frozen, formal, consultative, casual and intimate. Failure to use the appropriate register in conversation can have consequences. In school, and in employment situations, the register most commonly used is formal register. People who come from generational poverty do not have a background in formal register; the majority of their interactions with others of their class takes place in casual register, so they are at a disadvantage compared to the middle or wealthy class, who use formal register in their everyday interactions frequently. One's everyday interactions are called "primary discourse", while interactions with society at large are called, "secondary discourse". Students have been shown to do much better in school when their primary and secondary discourse methods are the same. (I've vastly simplified a complicated chapter).
Another factor that's missing in generational poverty is robust support systems.

"When a child has homework, who in the support system knows enough math to help the child? Who knows the research process? Who knows the ropes for going to college or getting a new car loan? Who knows how to talk to the insurance agent so the situation can be clarified? Who knows how to negotiate difficult situations with a teacher and come to a resolution? Who understands the court system, the school system? Information and know-how are crucial to success."

Payne evidently is fond of Steven Covey's Seven Habits work, as she quotes him a few times in the book, in the midst of some heavy-duty academic papers.

She also mentions something a couple of times that I found interesting. The role of discipline in households afflicted by generational poverty is completely at odds with that of the middle class. In generational poverty, "punishment is not about change, it is about penance and forgiveness. Individuals in poverty usually have a strong belief in fate and destiny. Therefore, to expect changed behavior after a parent-teacher conference is, in most cases, a false hope." From my perspective, middle class discipline is all about changing behavior, teaching action and reaction, cause and consequence. If you do A, B happens. If you don't like B, don't do A. (Or, don't get caught)

In her conclusion, Payne says,

"Yet another notion among the middle class and educated is that if the poor had a choice, they would live differently. The financial resources would certainly help make a difference. Even with the financial resources, however, no every individual who received those finances would choose to live differently. There is a freedom of verbal expression, an appreciation of individual personality, a heightened and intense emotional experience, and a sensual, kinesthetic approach to life usually not found in the middle class or among the educated. These patterns are so intertwined in the daily life of the poor that to have those cut off would be to lose a limb. Many choose not to live a different life. And for some, alcoholism, laziness, lack of motivation, drug addiction, etc., in effect make the choices for the individual."

Strong stuff.

Lady Crymsyn by P.N. Elrod

 Jack has, with Gordy's help, managed to launder the money he appropriated a couple of books back, from Frank Paco's embezzlement from the mob, and is finally realizing his dream of opening up his own night club, where Bobbi can headline until she gets noticed enough to head to Hollywood and be a movie star. As the story begins, he is just days away from opening up Lady Crymsyn, which will be a very high class joint - without the usual mob-run and protected casino, only the legal vices allowed.

A snag develops when the workers remodeling the basement of the building find a corpse, walled up to die alone - a woman in a bright red gown. Ever the white knight, Jack decides it's his responsibility to find out who she was and who was responsible for her murder, and to bring them to justice, if possible. All of this in his spare time while trying to hire staff, oversee construction, and get his club open on time.

The early trail leads to the usual suspects, the gangsters and their molls - or frails - who had something to do with the building under previous ownership. The old owner of the club was killed in a grenade attack, and the perpetrators were never caught, either, so perhaps Fleming can kill two birds with one stone here. This one has some fantastic twists towards the end, and takes us along on an unexpected narrative journey.

The only problem I have with the series at this point is that I would think that Jack would have figured out by now not to turn his back on henchmen carrying weapons, especially wooden ones that can actually knock him down and out for a significant time period. His squeamishness about not beating up or killing thugs is a huge handicap - he needs to just get over it.

The Dark Sleep by P.N. Elrod

When it looks as if Jack's long time girlfriend, Bobbi, may get an opportunity to impress some folks with Hollywood connections, he has mixed feelings. He loves her and wants her to succeed, but can hardly bear the thought of losing her to tinseltown. When one of them, a radio show host named Archy Grant gives her an opportunity to appear on his show, but there are some sexual strings attached, his feelings are not in doubt at all. Bobbi can be trusted not to fall for such enticements, and will probably be the one who plays rather than getting played, but Jack must resist the temptation to do something drastic about Archy's attentions.

Jack and Charles Escott are involved at the same time with attempting to recover some writings (they think they are love letters) that a wealthy socialite wants her former low brow lover to return, before they become an embarassment and derail her wedding to a foreign prince charming. The twist this subplot takes at the end is simply marvelous.

The main plot also takes an odd twist or two, as we finally get to learn about some of Escott's personal demons. I am starting to get a little irritated about how Jack never seems to keep an eye out for people sneaking up on him with a club, cosh, or cane. For someone who is able to hear the changes in the heartbeat of a blackjack dealer and get an advantage on the house odds, he is curiously unable to notice the heartbeat of someone who is pumped full of adrenaline and about to whack him on the head.

Another decent read from Elrod.

Ever After by Kim Harrison

I think I read somewhere that Harrison is going to be wrapping up this series pretty soon. The overall tenor of this book would tend to support that, as some of the major conflicts work their way towards resolution, and she seems to cease introducing as many new twists in this one - though there's an issue with a certain master vampire that's probably going to have to be dealt with in an upcoming episode, if it hasn't already been done in the "apocrypha."

I found it amusing that Rachel seems to have undergone a personal evolution with respect to some of her enemies at the beginning of the series, e.g., Trent Kalamak and Algliarept "Al" the demon. She began the series believing Trent to be an evil drug dealer, but eventually came to view him as an ally at first, then a friend, and now we begin to see the possibility of romantic attraction there. In most series, we'd  move from the stage where two characters spark conflict immediately and by the end of the novel, they're madly in love, but Harrison has brought us a bit more slowly and laboriously to the point. When Rachel summons Al in the early going, it is clear that he is a very dangerous demon, lusting for control of her soul (and body?), but Rachel has gradually come to know him and the other demons better, and understand their history, and now the two are definitely allies, if not friends. Of course, finding out that she is actually genetically a demon, too, might have made some difference in her attitude.

The plot? Oh, yeah. Quen wants Rachel to help him to keep Trent safe when Quen is unable to perform his duties. Rachel declines. On a trip to Trent's estate shortly after that, they are all surprised when the demon Ku'sox attacks Quen and Ceri in order to kidnap Luci, Trent's daughter, Ku'sox is already responsible for the abduction of a number of other babies with the same syndrome which Rachel has alone survived.

Ku'sox has big plans to make all the other demons subservient to him, and messes up all the ley lines that lead to the Ever After. Rachel is blamed for it, and unless she can fix the ley lines, rescue the babies, and vanquish Ku'sox, she's in big trouble.

Fun stuff, though there is some sadness as Harrison kills off a couple of major players.

When Helping Hurts by Steven Corbett

This is one of those books that suffers, as some christian apologetics do, from the author coming up with a theory based on a limited amount of scripture, and then trying to make all ministry done by the church, a parachurch, or christians fall under the principles derived from his theory. Corbett decides that we all suffer from some combination of spiritual poverty (Poverty of spiritual intimacy), relational poverty (Poverty  of community), stewardship poverty (Poverty of Stewardship), or self-image poverty (Poverty of being), and our failure to properly acknowledge and deal with our poverty hinders us in our dealings with others with their own "sickness", which can result in material poverty, i.e., being poor, but all of these conditions can apply to even christians with plenty of material wealth. Rick Warren did a better job of gathering all church activities into groups in The Purpose Driven Church, but though Corbett does have some interesting insights into how we all do charitable work, his analysis is fundamentally flawed, in my opinion.

He does have some interesting insights, gained over his years of serving in poverty-focused ministries. The book is structured like a training guide, perhaps originally published as a workbook for a class taught by the Chalmers Center, where he works.

An interesting thought on the nature of the universe, and original sin:

"...the all-encompassing effects of the fall, it is important to remember that neither humans nor the systems they create are as bad as they could possibly be. Christ continues to 'hold all things together' and to 'sustain all things by his powerful word.' Hence, while the good creation - including both individuals and the systems they create - is deeply distorted, it retains some of its inherent goodness."

That's an interesting perspective that seems to riff on the idea that "all good gifts come from the Father". I'm not certain, from a Calvinist perspective, which holds to the idea that anything we do which is not led by the Spirit through rebirth in Christ is "as filthy rags," how valid that might be, but it's certainly something to consider - that all the good things in the world are the result of Christ's efforts. Hmmm.

One interesting concept Corbett expounds upon is that when working with the poor, one has to determine whether "the situation calls for relief, rehabilitation, or development." When the need is immediate, such as after a fire or flood, situational poverty can be effectively aided, urgently and temporarily, through rapid relief. Once the situation stabilizes, rehabilitation by helping victims to work towards recovery, by donating labor or materials, or acting in an advisory capacity. What appears to be best, in Corbett's view is the act of development, moving "all the people involved, both the 'helpers' and the 'helped' closer to being in a right relationship with God, self, others, and the rest of creation.

I'm not sure exactly, how one comes to be in a right relation with the entire creation, but it sounds a bit like environmental gobbledegook to me. Sorry.

Actually, Corbett defines this a bit, and it's not quite that bad - evidently many cultures in what he calls "The Majority World" believe that unpredictable spirits control creation, and humans really have no way to affect their own destinies, rather fatalistic. If people are taught that God gave humans the right and responsibility to dominate creation, they are positively influenced to change their circumstances.

Corbett really hammers on short term missions, which have gained an astounding amount of participation today, especially in evangelical circles. He believes that they often do more harm than good, leaving indigenous pastors and staff reeling when the missions teams have departed, trying to live up to the standards set in the whirlwind of activity. Also, when the missions are project-based, like building a new home or church or feeding station, the first-worlders are far too focused on getting the job done as rapidly as possible, given a) their limited time and b)western culture's preoccupation with schedules and efficiency, rather than allowing the locals to set goals, manage the project, and take responsibility for their own development. Possibly valid points all, but I really hate to think that we would in any way discourage folks, especially young people, from going on a short term mission to introduce them to missions work in the first place, and to shake up their comfortable world view a bit, so they understand what life is like outside of the U.S.

Corbett does provide a number of concrete techniques and examples of how to properly assess and address needs in different situations, such as Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), and Appreciative Inquiry (AI). He also spends quite a bit of space talking about various microfinancing endeavors in the Majority World, which is quite interesting.

One final concept I found interesting is what he had to say about different perspectives of time. In Western Culture, we have a "monochronic" view, which sees time as a "limited and valuable resource." We're very focused on schedules, see wasting time as a sin, and procrastination a vice. In other cultures, there is a "polychronic" view, which sees time as an unlimited resource. The "manana" culture of Latin America comes immediately to mind. Also, hunting season in Idaho. Time "takes a backseat to forming and deepening relationships." He claims that people in polychronic cultures have deeper and more meaningful relationships than most Westerners. Not sure that's automatically true, but it's certainly a pitfall to avoid for many of us, who struggle with prioritizing work time, vacation time, and family time.

This is a good book to read for anyone who's looking for some new perspectives on helping the poor, wherever they may happen to be in the world.

A Chill in the Blood by P.N. Elrod

So, Jack has survived the showdown with the gangster boss, Kyler, and now he gets to deal with the three-way free-for-all between Frank Paco's daughter, Angela, the hotshot mobster sent down from New York to settle things, Sean Sullivan, and Gordy, Jack's friend and ally who might be gunning for a bigger piece of the action himself. To further complicate matters, Escott introduces Fleming to a group of FBI agents (think Untouchables-style) who want to clean up the gangs in Chicago, no matter what the cost. Stir in a few crooked cops and you've got a recipe for utter chaos!

Around this point in the series, it becomes fairly clear that Jack's vampire abilities could make most of the conflicts in these books far too easy to resolve, if he's not limited in some way. So, Elrod has him a bit forgetful about making sure he's topped off with blood at all times, making him slow to recover and unable to think clearly when he's a quart low. She also pits him against adversaries who are so strong-willed that they're hard to hypnotize, and he discovers that drunks are also immune to his powers, and she sets up situations where he's unable to arrange a solo encounter with the people he needs to influence the most, so he has to settle for very quick "shots" of imposing his will on them. Perhaps this will develop his character's use of his powers into something more resembling a scalpel than a sledgehammer eventually. He also struggles with his basic "goodness", despite being undead, and is unwilling to just murder the gangsters that are standing in his way, no matter how despicable they are.

So, it seems that we'll see some more personal growth out of Jack. Elrod also begins to flesh out some of the bit players in this drama, like Shoe Coldfied, the black gangster who is another friend and ally of Escott and Fleming's, and we get a sense that there's a big backstory for Escott, too.

Another fun adventure in gangland Chicago.

Blood on the Water by P.N. Elrod

The action continues non-stop from Fire in the Blood. Jack briefly regroups, making sure that Bobbi is safely tucked away, so that the gangster, Kyler, can't use her as leverage against him. A meeting with Kyler to swap the purloined necklace for safety turns into a betrayal when Kyler sets Jack up to take the fall with the police, but Fleming's vampire skills get him out of the situation again.

The plot gets quite a bit more complicated when Jack encounters a whole new faction of goons while on his way to deal with Kyler once and for all. It turns out that Frank Paco's daughter, Angela, has been running what's left of his organization in Frank's name "until her father gets better", and she has Fleming kidnapped to find out what he has to do with Kyler. Jack escapes her clutches, only to return later to rescue Escott, the next kidnap victim. Jack continues to struggle, in this novel, with his moral dilemma regarding losing control while hypnotizing others and feeding on them nearly to their destruction.

Treachery, double-dealing and distrust seem to be the order of the day...er, night, in this novel, as all the players except Jack and his buddies switch sides, lie, cheat and steal from one another. Again, the narrative just ends abruptly, only to be continued in the next book. Elrod had a story to tell, and couldn't be bothered to slow down for a transitional scene when her alloted pages ran out. Just happy she didn't like to leave things on a cliff hanger.

Interventions by Kofi Annan

Something odd struck me, as I was reading this autobiography. It seems that many who write their stories have these deep insights into who their parents were, and what motivated them, what sort of inner conflicts they faced, and so forth. It occurred to me that I really have no idea who my parents were in that sense. I can relate their basic history about where they grew up, in what era, and so forth, but inner conflicts...emotions? We never spoke of such things. Probably never will.

I found this a difficult book to push on through and finish. It seemed that Annan went into deep details at times that weren't all that interesting to me, while glossing over things quickly that I'd have been interested in hearing more about, and he also assumed a little too much historical knowledge on the part of his readers regarding some of the conflicts on which he focused. I lived through all the years he was Secretary General of the UN, but I was busy raising a family most of the time, and our mediocre media here in the US has not done a great job of covering world events - Michael Jackson and Lindsay Lohan and Beyonce's lip synching are far more important.

I found it interesting that though he condemns Israel quite harshly in the chapters actually dealing with the Palestinian question, he has something different to relate in an earlier chapter about the civil war in Lebanon.

"I concluded that 'whatever other agendas they may serve, Hizbollah's actions, which it portrays as defending Palestinian and Lebanese interest, in fact do neither. On the contrary, they hold an entire nation hostage.'"

He's also quite frank about the source of many of Africa's problems, even though he looks to the West to provide (as always) more funding.

"In a telling, if tragic - sign of Africa's many false starts on the path to development, it is widely recognized that the two principal obstacles to African development are energy and infrastructure. To recall how clearly this was understood forty years ago is to realize the price all Africans have paid for bad governance ever since."

and regarding the Africa Report,

"It emphasized the failures of the international community, too, including the UN's failure, in helping the peoples of Africa, the failure of all to help them ensure peace and create the conditions for sustainable development. But it stated these failures as orbiting features of a core problem: internal African politics and African leadership."

and,

"The problems of Africa, however, have always stemmed from a lack of institutions: a lack of the institutional resources necessary to deal with the complex political, social, and economic problems faced on the continent. But irresponsible, unaccountable personalized systems of rule are the enemy of these. Cultivating the authority of a single individual over an entire and diverse population means that any institution that empowers the population's various constituencies has to be blocked or crushed. It means institutions that uphold a system for the peaceful transfer of power between political parties and between leaders have to be eroded or eradicated. Civil society institutions, organizations, and activists independent of the state, and so beyond the control of the Big Man, can never be allowed to flourish. Free enterprise, underpinned by free societies and systems of regulation and law independent of the day-to-day whims of the leader - an essential feature for private sector driven development - cannot be allowed."

The applications implicit in that last passage seem a bit scary to me, given the hero-worship some on the left have for the Obama presidency.

Annan was, it appears, responsible for the changing mission and vision of the UN in the modern era. As he says,

"Before 1988, only a dozen peacekeeping missions were launched in all of the UN's forty-three years. But in the brief period between 1988 and 1992, the Council created another ten."

The ideas below are, perhaps, what alarms some folks in this country - we seem to be quite jealous of our sovereignty, having won it a couple of centuries ago through blood and sacrifice. He whines a bit about how the U.S. would never agree to submit itself to the authority of the International Criminal Court. Given the composition of the General Assembly and most of the commissions established by the UN, I can't see that it would be a good thing, myself, as far too many of the rogue states would like nothing better than to drag our leaders and soldiers into trials there.

"the opportunity that the crisis in Kosovo provided: to draw a new line in international affairs, to set a new standard in how we held states responsible for the treatment and protection of the people within their own borders. We had to make clear that the rights of sovereign states to noninterference in their internal affairs could not override the rights of individuals to freedom from gross and systemic abuses of their human rights."

I found his take on the situations in places like Somalia and the Sudan enlightening.

"...civil wars have a security impact far beyond their source. They suck in their neighbors, send thousands of refugees spilling into other countries, create havens for armed groups and terrorists, and they cause the spread of criminal networks and cross-border lawlessness, including piracy."

One interesting thing regarding Iraq's intransigence when it came to allowing the UN weapons inspectors to fully verify that all of the WMD's had been destroyed,

"Tariq Aziz...once asked a senior member of the UN's inspection team...'You know why we can never allow you to certify that we've rid ourselves of our weapons of destruction, don't you?' The UN official replied incredulously that this was the entire purpose of the inspections, and that once free of the stigma, Iraq could come in from the cold. Aziz replied, 'The Persians and the Jews.' For Saddam, in other words, sustaining the fear that he possessed WMD was all about deterring Iran and Israel, two countries that he considered mortal enemies."

Holy guacamole, Batman! It's all about face in the Arab world.

All you international affairs freaks might enjoy this one, and I felt it was good to hear Annan's perspective on things.