'...failing or betraying some mission you were mandated to fulfill and being unable to fulfill it and then coming to understand that the real mandate was not to fulfill it but to stand guiltless in the predicament in which you found yourself.' "

-Leonard Cohen, reflecting on his song "The Traitor",
from the documentary "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man."
via New York Times


An excerpt from "The Traitor":

But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment
I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still
My falsity had stung me like a hornet
The poison sank and it paralysed my will

I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers
That they had been deserted from above
So on battlefields from here to barcelona
I’m listed with the enemies of love

And long ago she said I must be leaving,
Ah but keep my body here to lie upon
You can move it up and down and when I’m sleeping
Run some wire through that rose and wind the swan

So daily I renew my idle duty
I touch her here and there -- I know my place
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
And people call me traitor to my face

Have been doing a little research into Celiac Diesease, a form of gluten intolerance, and I came across a couple of interesting things.

One, not only can bearers of this cross not drink Regular Joe Beer (malt and barley are no-no's), but they can not even play with Playdough (contamination issues). Can you imagine living your entire life with the dark knowledge that never again would you be able to make inedible blue pasta that smelt really cool?

Two, Gluten-Intolerant Folk (GIF)* are not supposed to eat the traditional Catholic communion wafer. Now I am sure some enterprising young Jew is selling the gluten-free commuion stuffs on his Kosher website, but that is not the point.

What is the point?

Well, maybe there is no point, but I do wonder aloud: Does the Pope have a position on this? According to Catholic Dogma (Is there any other kind?), the communion wafer is transfigured from baker's bread into the body of Christ upon placement onto a believer's tongue. Would the Pope have us believe the spotless lamb is not gluten-free?

*I am sure they have a catchier name, as do the diabetics or mavericks. I will look into it.

From Atrios:

"Of course, the Wen Ho Lee tale and the Times' wildly over-heated reporting (eagerly hyped by the paper's editorial page, run at the times by Howell Raines) did not spring from a vacuum. Instead, it occurred at the pinnacle of the press corps' Get-Clinton years and fit into a distinct and troubling pattern at the newspaper of record. Recall that the Times embarrassed itself in the 1990s with its now-discredited Whitewater coverage; a story often fed to the Times by anonymous partisan Republican sources. The Times embarrassed itself with an innuendo-heavy Loral investigation that suggested the Clinton White House gave away weapons secrets to the Chinese in exchange for campaign contributions; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources. The Times embarrassed itself with its one-sided Wen Ho Lee coverage; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources. And more recently, the Times embarrassed itself with its pre-war WMD coverage; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources. "