Last nnight I went, with Dear Wife, to a big-ole “slow food” pot luck dinner at the Ag Hall, which is a big-ole barn out in a field where they have the County Fair every summer and the Christmas pageant every winter.

Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, gave a talk afterwards. Then a string band played. [Read More!]

So, the New Yorker mag has a cover depicting Barack & Michelle Obama in the White House, in which she's Angela Davis with a bandolier and rifle, he's an Indonesian Moslem, Osama Bin Ladin's portrait is on the wall, and the American flag is burning in the fireplace. As I'm the 23,452,998th person to point out, the satire is a little weak because it's not clear whether the Obamas are being mocked or if it's the people who circulate the Manchurian Candidate emails about them.

Whatever. It's a magazine cover. I was kinda annoyed by it at first, but now actually it makes me smile a little.

What I'm waiting for now is the New Yorker cover that does to St. John McCain what this cover does to St. Barack Obama. It would have to include McCain setting the aircraft carrier Forrestall on fire (& killing 134 sailors), making propaganda tapes for the North Vietnamese, deserting his first wife (disfigured in an accident) for a mega-wealthy heiress, and having senile dementia.

Good.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Amsterdam police say 15 camels, two zebras and an undetermined number of llamas and potbellied swine briefly escaped from a traveling Dutch circus after a giraffe kicked a hole in their cage.

Police spokesman Arnout Aben says the animals wandered in a group through a nearby neighborhood for several hours after their 5:30 a.m. breakout.

From a Associated Press wire story. I know I said I was boycotting AP, but when a story this big comes up, I think the public's need to know trumps any moral quibbles about the fair use bastardy of our corporate overlords.