The new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is out. As the trend of its covers seems to be, it features a model or two on the cover having trouble keeping her top on. (I have not seen the cover as of yet, but this is what I am told.)

I could now get onto some sort of high horse and mention that academic study that showed that this is basically the only time you see women on the cover of Sports Illustrated… save that one time Anna Kournikorva appeared on the cover, which proves the same thing. I would then lament the rigidity of women’s roles in society — as proved by the lack of interest in Women’s athletics. I go to the Sports Illustrated online cover gallery, trying to think of moments where Women’s sports were the sports story of the week, and I find myself with the question: Wasn’t the huge point of her taking her shirt off that her sports bra had a Nike logo on it? (A stunt pulled that, I guess, goes back into the point made with the “Swimsuit issue and Anna Kournikorva” statement.)

It was a Sociology professor getting ready to mention that study who did this little game where s/he offerered anyone in the class extra credit points if they write down the Final Four participants in last year’s college Basketball tournament. When everyone who knew gave the answer turned in the final four participants of the Men’s Basketball tournament, s/he went on to mention in the next class that s/he meant the Women’s Final, and asked “Why’d you assume I meant the Men’s tournament?” and nobody got the extra credit.

When I heard this story, my thought was basically, “Oh, Go to Hell.” If you don’t specify, shouldn’t that mean either one would fall under the criteria of the rules?

I note a “Sports Illustrated for Women’s Magazine”, circulation probably at best one twentieth that of Sports Illustrated. I also note that I once noted they had a swimsuit issue, which featured… Shaquille O’Neal and his wife and… other athletes and their wives. A different beast than the men’s magazine, granted, and I don’t really know what their angle is.

My middle school library subscribed to some ramshackle “Sports Magazine” or other, which apparently does a “swimsuit issue” every year. In sixth or seventh grade, the school librarian took the issue and, in a bizarre manner, cut out the photographs of the semi-clad women replacing them with duct tape. In some cases, she cut out the whole person (save the face), in other cases only the busts and rears. I didn’t then and don’t now understand her game. Would it not make more sense to simply not shelve the danged magazine? And looking through the manner she cut the women up was indeed hilarious. What was her mind-set in cutting this women up like that and cutting that women in that other way? But then again, she was a weird person, indeed.

A Brazilian was the first to officially enter an Iranian newspaper’s contest for cartoons about the Holocaust, said Masoud Shojai, head of the contest secretariat, on Monday.

The Brazilian artist listed as the author of the cartoon could not be reached to confirm the entry was by him.

Soliciting anti-Semitic cartoons in the Arab World strikes me as redundancy squared. The Arab Press publishes anti-Jew cartoon after anti-Jew cartoon. For a blog that regularly publishes some of them, to shame his part of the world, consult The Religious Policeman is a good place.

“We don’t intend retaliation over the drawings of the prophet. We just want to show that freedom is restricted in the West,” said Davood Kazemi, executive manager of the contest and cartoon editor at the paper since 1992.

Urm. I won’t speak for anybody but my own nation, but… I don’t believe there is any governmental prohibition against publishing your asinine Holocaust cartoons. They may just not elect to do so. Please consult over here for a common, though not completely overpowering, attitude toward such offenses, for an Aaryan rally in front of the Lenin statue in Seattle’s Fremont district.

Overall, the demonstration failed to arouse the usual volley of epithets. Boyer says that his group was approached by hippies, lesbians, and a few Jews. “Most of them didn’t care,” says Boyer. “They said we have the right to free speech.” But it wasn’t a total loss. Boyer got the finger from a number of passing motorists, to which he responded (predictably) with the “Sieg Heil!” salute.

A countering attitude toward offense-givers is found with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In the main, I don’t understand the Holocaust Denial. You have two competing strands of thought. One: How great it was that Hitler killed Jews. Two: The Jews are lying that Hitler killed Jews. In the main, most Holocaust Deniers are semi-deniars, which is that The Holocaust is exaggerated, so I suppose at that point the two strands of thought are not strictly mutually exclusive. I find myself consulting Part Two of this collection of diatribes by a horrible person, and not understanding the whole “the Jews deserved what they got” / “You call it an extermination camp, but you know better” dichotomey.

But back in Israel, Now, a group of Israelis announce their own anti-Semitic cartoons contest. Amitai Sandy, the publisher of Tel-Aviv, Israel-based Dimona Comix, and founder of the contest jokes, “We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published! No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!

Clever, that. Clever that.

There is a triviality of the Dick Cheney Hunting Accident that largely just makes my eyes glaze over. It was the chief focus of the Press Gala Charade held with Scott McCleallan every day, it was the punchline of many water cooler conversations and late night talk show monolouge jokes, and it surfaces all over the blogosphere. Yes… Aaron Burr… Alexandar Hamilton. Laugh it up!

A perfect metaphor? A banal topic that you dissect to show how the White House operates for less banal topics? I don’t know.

I note that it pushed aside a more serious revelation regarding the Vice President. Please note that on the Sunday Morning Chattering Class shows, the following things were said about Dick Cheney:

George Allen, Republican co-front-runner for President: I don’t think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy.

Howard Dean: If it turns out that Scooter Libby, who said this week that his superiors ordered him to leak the information for political reasons, then this Vice President may not be Vice President very much longer.

Ah. Impeachment. Screw the President. Go to the Vice President.

I hate to bring this up, but … um… one guy who’s constantly urged the Impeachment of Cheney over Bush is…

Oh, never mind! There’s this hilarious pamphlet cover that I saw his peddlers push a few months ago on the “Post Cheney Age” entitled “Earth’s Next 50 Years” that featured this panoply of wonderous possibilities.

As for “Impeachment”: since the most powerful vice-presidents in American history are the last several, excluding Quayle, and they are now linked in total with the Presidential Administration, the rules of Impeachment have to be changed to be a double-whammy.

Never mind. Bush’s approval rating is back to 38%, bringing me back to my under 40 rule: Give me President Hagel, PLEASE.

I witnessed the aggressive tv shlock journalism of Fox 12 News a few days ago.

The camera-person was carrying the camera, walking backward, as a shop-owner was running right at it, in outrage. The effect of the camera-work was pretty obviously to create hyper-dramatic “outrageous” vaguely chilling and claustophobic television footage.

The entire scene looked staged beyond belief. The shop-owner was storming outside her store, speed-walking to the street corner, where she pointed and made loud gestures at broken pieces of concrete.

It’s a Fox 12 Exclusive, I guess, following Meth Watch 2006: Watch for the story of — Portland’s Killer Street Pavement.

Sweep the Rock! Sweep the Rock! Sweep the Rock!

Congratulations to the 1924 British Olympic Curling Team!!

The International Olympic Committee announced today that Britain’s victorious 1924 team will receive official recognition as Olympic champions – rather than their previous classification as winners of a demonstration sport.

They defeated Sweden 38-7 and France 46-4 in outdoor matches lasting 18 ends – but never got the chance to defend their title as curling disappeared from the Olympic programme until 1998.

I didn’t understand how the Olympic Committee can, years after the fact, upgrade an Olympic Competition like that, but I found the answer:

“Curling was part of the official programme at the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924, and the IOC is pleased to have been able to confirm that.”

So there you go. The Olympic Curling Teams of the 1980s and 1990s, up to the 1998 re-emergence as an official Olympic Sport, will just have to know that they will never be medal award winners, but will also be proud in the knowledge that they were instrumental in keeping the Curling Flame going.