Vanity, Vanity

The Scrapbook just finished reading this month's special edition--the "green issue"--of celebrity glossy Vanity Fair and, suffice it to say, we're alarmed. We're alarmed that when editor Graydon Carter decided to confront the scourge of climate change, his first instinct was to ask photographer Annie Leibovitz to compile a stunning portfolio of "eco-heroes" including Bette Midler ("I love nature") and such noted climatologists as George Clooney and Julia Roberts--who appear on the cover alongside Al Gore and Robert Kennedy Jr.

Also alarming: The centerpiece of the issue is an article entitled "While Washington Slept," written by Mark Hertsgaard, an author whose past subjects include the press during the Reagan presidency and The Beatles. The article paints a bleak portrait in which global warming has caused sea levels to rise around the world, with devastating effects. Pretty depressing. But there's also some unintended humor in the piece. To bolster the argument, and to bring the science home to the reader, some graphics accompany the type, which show how a rise in sea level will ruin critical infrastructure in locales as important to American politics and economics as New York City, Washington D.C., and . . . Martha's Vineyard, helpfully identified in the caption as "the tony Massachusetts beach community that has been a favorite getaway for the Clintons and the Kennedys."

We think this is called playing to your audience.

Protocols of Lee Elder's Four Iron

"I think golf gets a bad name from the mainstream media," Masters Tournament announcer Jim Nantz of CBS told Sports Illustrated's Kevin Cook a couple of weeks ago. "Somebody needs to defend the good name of the sport, and I'm ready to do it."

[W]hen all the top mainstream columnists come barreling down the interstate, guns in the air, what do we in golf do? We step aside. Instead of . . . saying, "William Safire and Maureen Dowd, you're full of you-know-what," we act as if we buy their idea that golf is for people who are out of touch, don't care about mankind, stuck up, elitist, racist--the horrible stereotype.

Enough's enough, says Nantz; time for the PGA to take out its big sticks and whack that horrible stereotype to kingdom come.

Terrible advice, The Scrapbook thinks. On a hole like this, Nantz & Co. would be much better off laying up and chipping in. Finesse is everything. Here's a thought, however: As Kevin Cook himself observes elsewhere in the same piece, "an SI poll found that almost 90 percent of Tour players said invading Iraq was a good idea." So all Nantz and friends have to do is take Safire and Dowd quietly aside and point out to them that professional golf--no less than the New York Times--is a full-time agent of the Israel Lobby. Problem solved! Funny, though, Vijay Singh doesn't look Jewish.

Found in Translation

Iraq seeking suicide bombers in 2001? Who cares? That, apparently, is the view of the mainstream media toward a recently released Iraqi document translated by Joseph Shahda and posted by Ed Morrissey at his blog, Captain's Quarters. Almost immediately, Captain Ed received emails from his readers questioning the accuracy of the translation of the document (as always, one can't be entirely sure the document itself is authentic).

So Captain Ed did what many mainstream outlets thus far have refused to do: He hired two translation agencies to double-check the translation. And it turns out those subsequent translations were virtually identical to Shahda's, which runs as follows:

The top secret letter 2205 of the Military Branch of Al Qadisya on 4/3/2001 announced by the top secret letter 246 from the Command of the military sector of Zi Kar on 8/3/2001 announced to us by the top secret letter 154 from the Command of Ali Military Division on 10/3/2001 we ask to provide that Division with the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests and according what is shown below to please review and inform us.

Interesting, no?

You Say Tomato

"These are not suicide operations," which, after all, is "a despicable term used by the Israelis," Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahar complained during an April 6 interview on Al-Arabiya TV. Al-Zahar prefers the term "martyrdom-seeking operations." After all, he went on, suicide bombings are "a form of resistance, and resistance against the occupation is legitimate."

European Union officials, you may not be surprised to learn, are likewise preparing to adopt an entirely revised "non-emotive lexicon" for issues related to Islamic terrorism generally. "Certainly, 'Islamic terrorism' is something we will not use," one E.U. official told Mark Trevelyan of Reuters April 11. The E.U. would much rather talk about "terrorists who abusively invoke Islam," Trevelyan's source explained.

Shouldn't that be "martyrdom-seeking individuals who abusively invoke Islam"?

Getting to Know You

Though there's "no statistical evidence that the break-up rate among online daters is any different from the national average," the Wall Street Journal's Ellen Gamerman reports, "some divorce lawyers point to anecdotal evidence." For instance:

In 1995, Matt Frassica, tired of singles bars and set-ups by friends, tried his hand at dating online. There he met, and later married, a woman who also liked long walks in the rain and homemade lasagna. They were even featured in People magazine as a prototype of successful cyber-romance. Then the fairy tale ended. Mr. Frassica said he realized he was gay, and the divorce was official last year. "We avoided getting to know the real person," says the 34-year-old corporate recruiter in San Francisco. "All we knew was the profiles of each other."

Next time out, the former Mrs. Frassica would be well advised to boldface and underline the part about her being a woman.