Island Life by David Slack

Put down the vibrator slowly, sir

On the Internet you can see the whole world before breakfast.

Item 1.
Doesn't this photo of Coca-Cola managing director Geert Broos put you in mind of that scene where Monty Burns was running for office and Marge served him the three-eyed fish the kids had caught downstream from his nuclear plant?

Item 2.

I am not a crook, but I am one hell of a bowler. Nixon's life in pictures. Note especially the picture of his last meal before he left the White House.

On the Internet, you can just keep learning more and more about the guy. Remember the 18 and half minutes that were "accidentally' deleted from the White House tapes? It turns out Arlo Guthrie came up with the answer. Alice's Restaurant is exactly 18 and a half minutes long! They were embarrassed to be recorded listening to my song, so they deleted it! Implements of destruction indeed.

Item 3.
If it weren't for the fact that it pivots on a slightly shaky premise, this would be the best piece of oratory in criticism of the Bush administration I've seen this year. Keith Olbermann takes the President to task for conflating the media with Al Qaida and Hitler.

I think his inference is unduly sensitive. Bush and his people treat the media, at times, with the same disregard they hold for all the little people: inanimate tools. When Bush talks about Bin Laden "using the media to drive a wedge between the American people and their government" I think he simply perceives the media as involuntary conduit.

Having said that, though, the rest of it is splendid:

the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 -- without ever actually saying so

and:

Moreover, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek-a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.


His preceding serve on Rumsfeld is equally good.

Item 4.
If you find architects' drawings easier to follow than their words, you might find this helpful.

Peter Cresswell is running something of a primer this week on what makes great architecture. Being the champion of the honest contest of ideas he is, this takes the form of a debate with Den MT, with both of them nominating five of their own architectural favourites.

You can fit everything I know about architecture onto one postcard, but that hasn't stopped me from making my own contribution to the debate in the form of a scan of a cartoon from this week's Private Eye.

Item 5.
And, finally: proof that the terrorists cannot possibly have won when guys like this are still having some entertaining sport at the expense of the airport security people.