Last night, a bunch of us went to Kelley and Ping in Soho – good food – pad thai and appetizers – yummy. Good teas. I had the chrysanthemum tea – I’m ignorant, such that I didn’t think that you could order chrysanthemum tea outside of the restaurants of Chinatown or my own kitchen. And, the menu had “Iron Goddess of Mercy” tea. I know this is a translation, but it’s a funny name for a tea (I’m such a silly ABC; it didn’t occur to me to try that tea since the name was funny).
Dessert was at Vesuvio Bakery. Apparently, it’s a NYC fixture – nice brick facade inside, homey coziness. Tiramisu was excellent – not too heavy and pleasantly comfortable.
Coca-Cola revises its old “I’d like to teach the world to sing…” jingle to teach the world to “chill.” I liked the old jingle (click the link and then click to play the ad “Hilltop” to watch the original commercial), and the new one called “Chill” just reminds you that it’s a pretty good song. I’m not certain I’ll try the new Coke Zero (no calories, same taste; but to teach me to “chill” doesn’t exactly motivate me to drink your stuff), but the ads are solid stuff (not tasteless, even if not overly creative).
And, in other media-related news — can’t believe MSNBC had this, but apparently Slim Goodbody is still out there, educating kids on physiology. (He’s the guy who for years was on PBS dressed in a bodysuit to demonstrate the human anatomy; I had no idea that he was once on Capt. Kangeroo’s show – which is before my time).
Slate’s shortlists for the US Supreme Court’s possible nominee – their best guess versus their guess that the choice could be less conservative (sort of). Hmm. The parlor games we’re playing are interesting things, but this’ll get weary. It’s like it was when we were playing the same game in pondering who’d be the next Pope – stick our fingers in the wind and prognosticate.
And then there’s Slate’s William Saletan, commenting on the terrorists’ intention of undermining democracy:
Now comes the message to “the British people” that “the British government” has brought more death on them. It’s Blair’s fault. It’s Bush’s fault. Turn against them, and the pain will stop. But it won’t. As yesterday’s message made clear, the bombers want us out of Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
Bin Laden’s whole game plan is to turn the people of the democratic world against their governments. He thinks democracies are weak because their people, who are more easily frightened than their governments, can bring those governments down. He doesn’t understand that this flexibility—and this trust—are why democracies will live, while he will die. Many of us didn’t vote for Bush’s government or Blair’s. But we’re loyal to them, in part because we were given a voice in choosing them. And if we don’t like our governments, we can vote them out. We can’t vote out terrorists. We can only kill them.
Saletan’s blunt. Quite a read.
Enjoy the rest of Saturday, despite the strange weather.