Dag!

Today, the New York Times proves conclusively that Sasha Baron Cohen was completely on the money when it came to the portrayals of Central Asians in his movie Borat.

Ellen Barry's piece is one of the funniest I've seen in the Times in quite a while.

I'll give you a few minutes to go ahead and read it, but then come back...

[Cough, cough]

Back so soon! We missed you!

I will say a couple of things by way of criticism:

1) How the hell could they not have repeated the Jewish joke? I mean, that's writing 101. (How bad could the joke have possibly been?)

I'm sort of furious about this... Ellen Barry, if you're reading this, I want to know! How could you leave that out?! (I'm not blaming you: I'm sure there was some schmucky editor at the Times who said, "We can't print that!")

2) How the hell come this story wasn't on Page 1? They have a frickin' story about the jobs situation in Mississippi, but the story about Dagestan jokes winds up on Page A7? No news sense! None!

3) How the hell does 1,200 people constitute an ethnic group? That's my building for chrissakes, not an ethnic group.

Otherwise, I give Miss Barry credit. Niiiiiiiiiiiiice!

Your homework assignment

A couple of things from the paper I would recommend to my readers (none of them all that schlubby -- but, hey, it's my blog so I'll recommend what I want!):

The biggest story this week (and last week), of course, has been the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme that has swallowed an estimated $50 billion.

The Times has a truly fabulous story on page one by Christine Haughney about how the Madoff scandal is effecting New York real estate. (The kind of story you read and say, "Gee... I wish I had written that.") People who were invested with the guy are already having to put their apartments on the market because their mortgage payments were tied up to Madoff investments. Moreover, a great deal of development will be unable to move forward. Definitely worth a read.

Speaking of Bernie Madoff, this is one of those times I really wish I was back at the Forward (and it might be the only time I wish I had the Jewish philanthropy beat -- which I can testify is a very boring beat). Because this week we really might have seen the death of Jewish Philanthropy. Anthony Weiss and Gabrielle Birkner have a story in the Forward about some of the charities who were invested with Madoff. But I fear this story only scratches the surface; a lot of hospitals, schools and charities will be closed because of this reckless man.

Speaking of greed and recklessness, the Times has another great story on page one by Louise Story about just how big a crock all the Wall Street bonuses were over the last few years.

In other news, Time Magazine's man of the year is Barack Obama. (What a shock.)

Newsweek's Michael Isikoff has a really terrific piece about Thomas Tamm, the heretofore unknown whistleblower on the Bush Administration's domestic spying program.

George Packer tears Sean Penn a new one on his blog. (You go George! No matter how good an actor Sean Penn is, listening to him talk about politics makes liberals like me really, really cringe.)

And for my schlubs out there: Burger King (yes that Burger King) is offering a new cologne called "Flame."

Quote(s) of the day

From Ron Rosenbaum in Slate:

Need I suggest that those who spend time doing crossword puzzles (or sudoku)—uselessly filling empty boxes (a metaphor for some emptiness in their lives?)—could be doing something else that involves words and letters? It's called reading.

That line is nearly topped a few paragraphs later with this:

It suddenly occurred to me that things must be even worse for the newspaper business than I had imagined. Crosswords and sudoku may be all that holds up the bottom line. Truly, the last days are upon us: People apparently now buy the newsprint editions only because you can do the puzzles in them.

Ha! (And "Sigh!") For the record: I've always sucked at crossword puzzles. And Scrabble. But I'm not bad at charades. And I kick ass at Trivial Pursuit.