View From the Bushes

In recent news, Arafat is finally dead. I say 'finally' for two reasons: the first of course being that for the last week people kept saying he was dead, then someone would refute to say that, "No, he was still alive just brain dead/in a coma/had a stroke." I think all told there must have been nearly a half dozen cycles of an announcement of death and then a retraction. It's a gross generalization to say that Arafat was responsible for the entire Arab-Israeli conflict and by extension all of the problems in the middle east, but it's an equally profound mis-characterization to claim that he didn't have blood on his hands, lots of it.

The French's support of Arafat (Chirac in particular) is one of those things that I think make Americans less fond of them. I don't know if I mentioned this, but my new boss is French. Fortunately, he seems to have left most of his "French-ness" on the other side of the Atlantic. Still, it gives me plenty of opportunities to make jokes. The other day a co-worker and I had a meeting with a potentially hostile executive. He volunteered to come along and I replied by saying, "What sort of idiot brings the French along for backup?" Everybody thought it was pretty funny except the Boss, who spent the next few minutes furiously scribbling notes. Actually that's an exaggeration -- he laughed too, and I figure there's some small chance he wasn't furiously scribbling mental notes.

I started reading "Angels and Demons," the prequel to "The Da Vinci Code." So far I'm somewhat unimpressed. There are already some fairly significant plot holes, and the book is so similar to "The Da Vinci Code" that it makes the latter book seem quite derivative (intellectually, at least, on a more emotional standpoint it makes Angels and Demons seem derivative even though it was written first). Despite all that, he does write a fairly gripping yarn. My wife compared him to Agatha Christie. Sure, all of her stuff seems very similar, but it's still a good read.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross