Everything You Need to Know About Hollywood.

Drug and rape a child? Your career continues, and your peers give you an Oscar.

Cross a picket line? Your career is dead, and your peers put you on a blacklist.

[Second link via Relapsed Catholic.]

A Note About Intermittent Blogging.

Well, let's see: the preferable delights of home and family, a daughter who had tubes put in her ears, a son Who Is Just Now Getting The Sleep Memo, a house that has cost me $550 (electrical and furnace problems) over the last two weeks (and could cost me $1G more--sagging floor), a work schedule gone manic, and the (stunningly abbreviated) NHL playoffs--these are a few of my favorite blog distractions.

At the moment, it looks like I might be able to get back on the blogging track. How long--time will tell.

The Easter Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

In my opinion, unsurpassed. May you and yours have a blessed Easter! He is Risen, indeed!

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.
To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!
Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Marine who put American flag on Saddam statue speaks.

Corporal Edward Chin says the Iraqis were far from offended by it:

[He] told CNN's Paula Zahn that the display of the American stars and stripes, and the subsequent removal of that flag and hanging of a pre-Gulf War Iraqi flag, were "more like a symbol that we were here to give (Iraqis) their country back."

"They wanted a flag on his head, the American flag," Chin said. "They brought it up to me and I put it on there for a brief moment.

"The Iraqi crowd, they were egging us on," he said. "They were happy to see us do it. We took it down after a brief moment and put their flag up."

More Carroll-ing.

Well, at least briefly.

Is Mohammed El-Baradei a complete idiot? Or just blind?

Investigators Tuesday discovered that Al-Tuwaitha hides another city. This underground nexus of labs, warehouses, and bomb-proof offices was hidden from the public and, perhaps, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who combed the site just two months ago, until the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Engineers discovered it three days ago.

Today, the Marines hold it against enemy counter-attacks.

So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have discovered 14 buildings that betray high levels of radiation. Some of the readings show nuclear residue too deadly for human occupation.

A few hundred meters outside the complex, where peasants say the "missile water" is stored in mammoth caverns, the Marine radiation detectors go "off the charts."

"It's amazing," said Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist. "I went to the off-site storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly radioactive material."

To nuclear experts in the United States, the discovery of a subterranean complex is highly interesting, perhaps the atomic "smoking gun" intelligence agencies have been searching for as Operation Iraqi Freedom unfolds.

Last fall, they say, the Central Intelligence Agency prodded international inspectors to probe Al-Tuwaitha for weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors came away with nothing.

"They went through that site multiple times, but did they go underground? I never heard anything about that," said physicist David Albright, a former IAEA Action Team inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1997. Officials at the IAEA could not be reached for comment.

Applying what's been known as the 48 Hour Rule is sensible here: Wait 48 hours to see if there have been any WMD confirmations. So far, none of them have panned out after two days. This seems to be a slightly different breed of cat, though.

Moreover, this sure does raise some interesting questions. Such as, just precisely what high-tech detection devices were UN inspectors using?

Divining rods?

[Link via Christopher Johnson]

"James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe."

A phrase which should induce uncontrollable shuddering amongst sensible folk. Or at least an overpowering urge to reach for a barf bag.

The tedious apostate attempts to medicate his evident dismay about recent Coalition military successes with a discursive sequence of questions about the war and American policy in general. Think of it as the Socratic method meets the Metamucil-gobbling "Every War Is Vietnam--We Hope!" crowd meets the Royal Society for the Promotion of Moral Equivalence. Here's a Whitman's sampler:

Can aggressive war be waged by those who grasp the bottomless tragedy of the human condition, how every story -- whether one person's or a nation's -- ends in death? How every untimely death wounds the absolute, and how unnecessary death is itself the mortal enemy?

I'm not in a mood to let the NIONs of the world have the moral high ground right now. They don't deserve it. God knows they haven't earned it. In fact, this faux moralizing brings out the side of me that identified with the protagonists on Molly Hatchet album covers.

So, I'll keep it simple: Here's one question lobbed back at the Carroll Claque:

Why did you side with the captors, and not the captives?




[Second link via Mark Sullivan]

More Gurkhiana.

Victorino Matus over at The Weekly Standard has an article about the Gurkhas in Iraq, including a description of their last visit to the region in 1914.

Mark Sullivan offers this fine article by the same author about the deployment of the Brigade in Afghanistan. The Gurkhas were eager to take the field:

Asked how they like it in the desert, some of them complain that it is hot, but add, "We are enjoying it here." The temperature is about 115 degrees. And what do they think about the latest crisis? One rifleman told a reporter from The Mirror, "The attack on America was very sad and many lives were lost. It was terrible to watch on television. So I would love to go to Afghanistan to fight." He went on to say, "From what I have read, the Taliban are bad people, so the fight would be very just. I would even ask to go first."

Like I said, on our side.

SARS Comes to Michigan.

There are two suspected cases in the State, according to local physicians. Given our border with Ontario, I suspected we'd get something before now.

The Detroit News has also assembled a handy primer on the virus, including a map of where the cases are in the U.S. The bottom line is that panic is unwarranted:

Scary as SARS is, he [University of Michigan epidemiologist Dr. Arnold Monto] notes, we should all be grateful it's not a killer influenza -- as initially feared -- that's made its way out of China across the globe.

The flu transmits easily in aerosolized form through the air, he says, making for much more widespread, lightning-quick contagion.

SARS, by contrast, seems to travel poorly through the air, and generally only in "large drops" that a coughing or sneezing person ejects.

While those can be inhaled by somebody standing very close, they usually only project out about three feet, Monto says, at which point they drop to the floor. While much is still unknown about this illness, that suggests it would be unlikely to spread through ventilation systems. The upshot, Monto adds, is that SARS' spread can be slowed, where that might be next to impossible with a killer flu.

"Obviously, there's much that's still being learned," says Geralyn Lasher, spokesman at the Michigan Department of Community Health. "Since it's obviously been very serious in some parts of the world, we're taking a very cautious approach. But all the cases in Michigan are doing well and improving."

Health writer Michael Fumento also has a valuable perspective, although his report about the effectiveness of older antivirals appears to be inaccurate.
Medpundit regularly posts updates about the disease, so keep checking.

Finally, why the Chinese may have had such difficulty in containing the outbreak: the appalling misuse of "medicine" by the totalitarian regime instilled an understandable phobia toward doctors in ordinary Chinese:

Not very long ago — within the past five years, let's say — an American businessman of my acquaintance, a leading figure in the health-care field, was approached by an authoritative official of the Chinese government with a truly fabulous offer. How would the American like to set up a nationwide network of clinics, under his own name and with clear American identification? He would provide the medicine, the staff, the doctors, the technology. The Chinese would provide the money, the land, the labor force to build the clinics, and guarantee a substantial profit for at least a decade.

The American was impressed; who wouldn't be? And of course he was curious. Why were they being so generous?

The answer helps understand why it took so long for the Chinese to fess up to the existence of the new Viral pneumonia. The Chinese official put it this way: "we are having a terrible time getting people to see doctors, even for routine physical checkups. And this is because of an event that took place back in the late 1940s, following Mao's revolution. At that time, the government promised to eradicate venereal disease in China. And it did. Everyone was forced to undergo an examination by a certified doctor. And anyone with venereal disease was executed. Ever since, most Chinese stayed far away from medical doctors."

Sad non-war news.

Mr. Noodle is dead. My daughter loves that segment on Sesame Street, too.

Michael Jeter died at age 50, six years after disclosing he had HIV. Best known for the "Evening Shade" television show, for my money, his best work was in a film too few people saw: The Fisher King.

Jeter played a "Homeless Cabaret Singer" (so sayeth the credits, but I thought his character had a name) to tragicomic perfection. His scene-stealing moment involved his character delivering a singing telegram to the would-be lady-love of Robin Williams' character.

In drag.

With his thick Civil War general-style mustache.

Dancing on a desk.

Belting out a pitch-perfect impression of Ethel Merman.

Did I mention it was a Terry Gilliam film?

Well, it happens to be my favorite film of all time, so go out and rent it in tribute to an underrated character actor. For you Catholics (and others) leery of R-rated films (it earned it, for language and some non-gratuitous but disturbing violence), it involves the Holy Grail, a quest for redemption, and multiple examples of self-sacrifice. It's also side-splittingly funny in parts, to boot.

Go get it.

Enter the Gurkhas.

The storied Nepali warriors have arrived in Iraq.

"In the last two years we've been everywhere the British Army's been, from East Timor to Afghanistan," Major Stevens said.

Their reputation is also tethered to their "ethos" -- adherence to a strict, self-imposed code of honor and discipline.

"We must be loyal, honest, well-trained," explained a rifleman standing in front of perfectly arranged cots flush and grounded at their encampment here. "We are very experienced, especially in jungle warfare."

A more recognizable trademark is their long and lethal Kukri knife, a symbol of their legacy and lethality.

The Gurkhas are working with the four agencies already securing this base, including Security Forces, RAF and Ministry of Defense Police and local constabularies.

"We're very happy to be working with the MOD police and U.S. Forces," a Gurkha rifleman said. "We are not sure about the conflict with Iraq and we don't know what will happen, but we're here now and we're happy to help."

God help the Fedayeen.

Here's a good source for Gurkha links.

This is the official British Army website for the Brigade of Gurkhas, complete with an explanation of the famous kukri knives.

My favorite story about the Gurkhas is almost certainly apocryphal, but accurately depicts the loyalty and courage of these men. The story says the British were expanding their paratrooper divisions, and were seeking recruits. The obvious choice was to ask the Gurkhas. A British company commander agreed, and assembled his Gurkha unit, confident that most, if not all, would volunteer. He explained to the soldiers that the Army was seeking volunteers for these new units, and explained that they would undergo risky 1000ft plus airdrops behind enemy lines. To the officer's shock, only about half stepped forward to volunteer. The Gurkha sergeant was also surprised, and queried the men himself. He quickly came back, and told the officer to ask again. Puzzled, the officer complied. This time, the entire unit stepped forward.

"I told them they would get parachutes," the sergeant explained.

Another version of this story is told here.

Relax. They're on our side.

Operational Pause.

The blogging interruption was the result of workload and two small children not sleeping at the appointed time.

There is a very good likelihood of another pause occurring soon.