SNIPPETS

FEBRUARY 5,  2010

From The New York Times:  JAKARTA, Indonesia —A recently-erected statue of President Obama as a 10-year-old boy will be removed from a public park here, city officials said Friday, bowing to vociferous criticism on Facebook one month before Mr. Obama visits Indonesia...the statue of Mr. Obama — who successfully exploited the potential of social networking sites during the 2008 presidential campaign — soon became the target of intense ire by critics who said Mr. Obama who had done nothing for Indonesia, and said the public park should be reserved to honor an Indonesian.

It's no different in Indonesia:  What have you done for me lately?

FEBRUARY 4,  2010

Actual headline in The Politico:   U.S. pondered military use in Georgia

I guess General Sherman wasn't available.  The headline, of course, refers to the nation of Georgia, near Russia.  But headline writers must be careful about first impressions.

FEBRUARY 3,  2010

PHOENIX (AP) - An Arizona school principal who penned a sarcastic letter that chided parents for children who were either "too lazy or too stupid" to complete their assignments in class was suspended after the missive was mistakenly sent home.  "The math we do is really easy," said the letter from Litchfield Elementary School principal Ron Sterr. "If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress." 

Okay, okay, he probably shouldn't have written it.  On the other hand, there should be at least some faint praise for his obvious integrity.

FEBRUARY 2,  2010

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish priest has installed an electronic reader in his church for schoolchildren to leave their fingerprints in order to monitor their attendance at mass, the Gazeta Wyborcza daily said on Friday.

I can't wait to see the ACLU get involved in this, in Polish.

FEBRUARY 1,  2010

DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Jan. 31 (UPI) -- A restaurant owner in Arizona alleges the owners of an eatery in Delray Beach, Fla., stole the theme behind his Heart Attack Grill.  Heart Attack Grill owner Jon Basso alleges in a federal lawsuit the owners of the Heart Stoppers Sports Grill in Delray Beach copied his theme of having a restaurant with a medical theme and unhealthy foods, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel said Friday.

Well, the Japanese had their kamikaze, and apparently we have ours.

JANUARY 31,  2010

NEW YORK, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Americans consider heavy male political candidates more honest and reliable than thin ones, but thin still wins for female candidates, a study shows.  "A candidate's physical appearance plays a greater role in evaluation than we have thought in the past," Dr. Elizabeth Miller, the study's co-author, told the New York Daily News. "We assume voters only pay attention to things like issue position, but to think that they don't pay attention to physical appearance is a bit naive," added Miller, a political scientist at the University of Missouri.

The calorie gap – a new concept in politics.