What Caught My Eye Today

Palestine - Argentina announced today that it recognizes the Palestinian territories as a free and independent state within their 1967 borders, a step it said reflects frustration at the slow progress of peace talks with Israel. The recognition comes three days after Brazil's recognition. Uruguay and Paraguay are expected to recognize Palestinian statehood in the next few days, followed by Bolivia and Ecuador. The Palestinian Authority opened a diplomatic mission in Buenos Aires in 1996 and in 2008 Argentina installed a representative in Ramallah, the West Bank Wow. Who would have thought that with all attention be focused on the United States, Europe and the Middle East, that South America would swoop in and steal the spotlight. How telling would it be if South America, through its bold actions, ended up resolved the decades old Palestinian question.Yet more proof the the center of the universe is no longer Europe or, maybe--perish the thought--even the United States.

Italy - Other than the food, the thing I love most about Italy is its government. Since 1946, the Italians have had 24 different prime ministers, or roughly 1 every 30 months. Silvio Berlusconi is the second longest-serving Prime Minister of Italy, a position he has held on three separate occasions: from 1994 to 1995, from 2001 to 2006 and currently since 2008. And, oh by the way, he ranks as the 74th richest man in the world with a net worth of USD 9 billion. Alas, all is not well for Signor Berlusconi. Four Italian ministers resigned from the coalition government, deepening the political crisis sparked by the latest scandal surrounding Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's sexual escapades. I almost forgot. Dude has a crazy active sex drive for a man his age. Berlusconi admits he pressured police to release an underage woman, who had previously attended parties at his home, after she was accused of shoplifting, but he has vowed to stay in office. Given that he maintains a comfortable majority in the upper house, an upcoming parliamentary no-confidence vote is unlikely to force him to call for early elections. Let us not forget one this. Boyfriend is worth $9 billion! Dudes this rich don't play by the same rules as the rest of us mere mortals.

Exorcisms - I swear on a stack of Bibles, I'm not making any of this stuff up.. With demand for exorcisms high and only a handful of priests qualified to perform them, the Catholic Church held a two-day training session onthe ancient rite. I'm not sure what I find more surprising--that there is high demand for exorcisms or that it only takes two days of training to be able to perform one. The training included instruction on the scriptural basis of evil, how to evaluate whether someone is truly possessed (a "violent reaction to holy water" is one symptom), and exorcism prayers and rituals. Priests receive hundreds of requests annually from people seeking to banish evil spirits. I couldn't find any statistics, but for my money, I'm betting the majority of those requests are coming from a patch of dirt bordered by First Street, Independence Avenue and Constitution Avenue in Washington D.C.

Words - Stay with me on this one. Why, you ask. Think about it. Where would you be without them? ... You're scratching your heads now aren't you? The Global Language Monitor has announced its top ten words of 2010. The Global Language Monitor’s WOTY was conceived in 1999 as a way to create a cultural record of the year as reflected in the world’s current global language, English. GLM monitors million of web pages on the Internet, Blogosphere, and social media in addition to over 80,000 print and electronic media sites.

1. Spillcam — The BP Spillcam instantly beamed the immensity of the Gulf Spill around the world to the dismay of environmentalists, BP’s PR staff and the President.
   Really? this is the ord of the year. Yawn.
2. Vuvuzela — Brightly colored plastic horns that first came to prominence at the South African World Cup.
   And they sound pretty bitchin' too, don't they?
3. The Narrative – Though used at least since The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845, ‘The Narrative’ has recently been gaining traction in the political arena, virtually replacing the need for a party’s platform.
   Who needs an actual opinion or position on an issue, when one can rely upon a narrative? No wonder the politicians are all over this word.
4. Refudiate — Conflation of “refute” and “repudiate” (un)officially coined by Sarah Palin.
   Atta girl. Way to stay relevant.
5. Guido and Guidette — Hey! All things Jersey are hot.
   Hmm. I appear to have missed the text from Paris Hilton on Jersey being hot.
6. Deficit – A growing and possibly intractable problem for the economies of most of the developed world.
   Just out of curiosity, when did basic math skills go the way of the dodo bird? I find it fascinating that world leaders are just now figuring out that when you spend more than you make, bad things happen.
7. Snowmagedden (and ‘Snowpocalypse’) — words linking ‘snow’ with ‘apocalypse’ and ‘armageddon’, used to describe the record snowfalls in the US East Coast and Northern Europe last winter.
   This winter isn't shaping up to be much better.
8. 3-D – Three-dimensional (as in movies) is buffo box office this year, but 3-D is being used in new ways generally describing ‘robustness’ in products.
   Too bad the folks in charge of producing movies are spending more time trying to produce better technology instead of better plot lines.
9. Shellacking – President Obama’s description of the ‘old-fashioned thumpin’ in George W. Bush’s words, that Democrats received in the 2010 US Mid-term elections.
   Give the dude some props here. He didn't try to sugarcoat this bloodbath.
10. Simplexity – The paradox of simplifying complex ideas in order to make them easier to understand, the process of which only adds to their complexity.
    Like say, oh I don't know, deficit spending.

I don't know. This list is okay, but I guess I have a bias. For me, the word of the year, every year, should be "chimichanga". First of all, who doesn't like deep fried burritos? Secondly, you can't really say "chimichanga" without smiling (try it). How many words can you say that about? Okay, maybe vuvuzela, but you get my point.