HAD DINNER with my grandmother tonight. My daughter has a cold — not a terrible one, but a coughing-and-sneezing-a-lot one, which seemed like a bad thing to take to a place full of sick old people. So I went on my own, and picked up dinner for us both at Aubrey’s, so as to give her a break from institutional food.

As the sign to the right — reminding people of what day and year it is — indicates, it’s not an especially happy place by nature. But my grandmother manages to stay cheerful. She and one of her friends were laughing themselves silly making fun of the food, like freshman girls in a dorm. Her arm is healing and she can eat and write with it now, though she still can’t support her weight.

The people there are actually quite nice, and seem to really care about the people they’re taking care of. I don’t think that I could do their jobs, but I’m glad that they can.

UPDATE: Several readers sent emails like this one from Carey Cline:

I agree with you about the staff at rehab centers/nursing facilities. Early last summer my mother was in a rehab center in my home town (Dalton, GA) following knee replacement surgery. She stayed about a month and while she was not exactly thrilled about being there I couldn’t have been more pleased by the facility and staff. The were attentive and cheerful, the place was immaculate and her care was top notch. All this knowing that they are paid very little for very difficult work

Many times during the 4 weeks she was there I thought that the staff was doing God’s work, and knew that I couldn’t do it. When some nursing home horror story is publicized the people that care for the old and ill in this country are sometimes painted with a broad brush that is undeserved. As we all age, I can only hope there will be people and facilities as good as Momma’s was if I am in need of their services.

I was watching a woman there feed an old man who was unable to feed himself, and it was quite touching. These people really don’t get enough credit.

CHARLES STROSS UPDATE: Reader Dave Price likes Singularity Sky:

Thanks so much for recommending Singularity Sky. Read it this weekend. Of course, being a huge fan of physicist Brian Greene’s Fabric of the Cosmos and The Elegant Universe, I was hooked by the first mention of quantum entanglement and causality violations. I also read the suthor described as a “leftist,” which gives me great hope for the future as it seemed to endorse a lot free-market libertarianism ideals. If this is the kernel of a someday-to-emerge neoleftism, who knows: I might even vote Democrat some day.

I’d like to see more forward-looking, free-market Democrats. I have, by the way, just received a copy of his forthcoming book Accelerando. It’s set in the near-future, and looks pretty interesting, but I haven’t actually read it yet.

MILITARY BLOGGER NEIL PRAKASH has been awarded the Silver Star. Here is his blog.

ANOTHER REPORT OF SLEAZY BEHAVIOR from Jack Kemp:

TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE, some American elites are actively shilling for the Chavez regime even as the media crackdown proceeds. Jack Kemp, notably, has been busy opening doors for the Chavez government. Recently Kemp and the Venezuelan ambassador visited the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in an unsuccessful attempt to charm the paper away from its anti-Chavez stance. Since that visit, the Journal reported that Kemp has been trying to broker a complicated deal to fill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve with Venezuelan oil via an intermediary company–Free Market Petroleum LLC–on whose board Kemp sits. Since hooking up with Free Market Petroleum, Kemp has visited with Chavez and his ministers in Caracas. Surely he must have noticed Chavez’s brutality here.

American elites should be helping pressure the Chavez regime and publicizing its anti-democratic doings in Venezuela, not seeking to profit from collaboration with it.

First oil-for-food, and now this. Kemp was always into gold, but . . . .

ED CONE NOTES another lame story about the Internet, from the New York Times Magazine:

For its cover article The Making of a Molester, the magazine asks if the Internet “allowed Roy to go from being a seemingly normal man to a man who could solicit sex from a 12-year-old?”

Um, no?

I read the article. I was duly horrified. But when I got to the part where Roy goes all pervy, there was nothing to suggest that the Internet had ANYTHING AT ALL to do with his sickness.

Nope. But the Times is scared of the Internet.

UPDATE: A Slashdot reader looks at previous NYT coverage: “Dr. Bob Hamburger, associate shaman at Ye Olde Schoole Of Medickal Arts and Alckemy, considers the automobile to be a new horse for child molestation: ‘There are three areas of concern. First, the molesters can use these ‘cars’ to travel to children, getting to them much faster than they could using just a horse or even a team of horses. Second, the automobile’s interior can be used as an area for molestation. Third, the easy accessibility can facilitate moving over boundaries.'”

AUSTIN BAY WRITES THAT ZARQAWI HAS BEEN SUCKERED:

Z-Man’s been suckered. Z-Man is the troops’ nickname for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda’s jefe in Iraq. Z-MAN has declared a “fierce war” on democracy. Z’s taken Bush’s bait– except the Presiden’ts “bait” of promoting democracy and declaring war on tyranny and 0ppression isn’t mere bait, it’s essential American values. The ideological dimensions of the War on Terror (The Millennium War) were there from the get-go, but the Presiden’t inaugural address has focused them. That’s a huge step, I think, to obtaining the kind of resilient victory and secure peace the American people deserve. . . .

Yup– a week before the Iraqi election Zarqawi has come out in public for imperialism, in his case Islamo-fascist imperialism.

Read the whole thing. It’s like somebody planned it or something.

UPDATE: Zarqawi isn’t getting much geek-respect, either, as a reader emails: “Someone should tell that Zarqawi guy that until he puts his tapes up as podcasts, we aren’t listening.”

BLIZZARD-BLOGGING: Lots of people are doing it. Links here, here, here, here, and here.

And Ann Althouse remains the blogosphere’s champion photodinnerblogger.

UPDATE: More blizzardblogging, with photos, here.

IF YOU HAVEN’T BEEN READING THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE LATELY, well, you should be.

FRIENDS OF DEMOCRACY is an Iraqi NGO bringing “Ground-level election news from the people of Iraq.”

ED MORRISSEY offers a Ukrainian perspective on Bush’s inauguration speech. Seems like it’s playing pretty well there . . . .

JEFF JARVIS has much more to say about the Tim Blair item linked below.

UPDATE: Roger Simon has more on the myth of the foreign correspondent.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: “Let me get this straight, MSM whine about the expense of sending reporters to Iraq, then they use that money to file a story about a guy who was embarrassed when his mother saw his girlie mags. What’s next, wasting a fortune on ‘Local Man Falls Asleep After Heavy Meal’?”

I’m guessing that Michael Moore would figure in that one . . . .

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: More here, plus a unique perspective from Iowahawk.

HUGH HEWITT offers advice to the news media in today’s Los Angeles Times: “Cover the Terror War as a War.”

MORE VIDEOBLOGGING: The Insta-Daughter spent the night with a friend last night, which let me and the Insta-Wife spend some quality time together. Among other things, we watched Sex, Lies and Videotape, which neither of us had seen since it was in theaters. If anything, we liked it better than we remembered. And I bought the DVD at Target for a bargain price of $5.50, too. If that sort of thing becomes common, it’s going to be hell on video-rental stores.

And I’ll always be grateful to Steven Soderbergh for providing me with an excellent title.

IN CALIFORNIA, they’re digging their heels in against education reform. Does Arnold know about this?

PARVEEN BABI has died.

IN SOMALIA, even the dead are not safe, apparently.

TIM BLAIR: “It’s another My Lai! Congratulations for exposing this, Washington Post.”

AMIT VARMA visits the bad side of Bloggerville and discovers plagiarism and worse.

WHITE HOUSE BACKPEDALING on Bush’s inaugural address? That’s not good.

IN LIGHT OF MY EARLIER MENTIONS, I should note that I just ordered this William Gibson video, which sounds pretty cool. Heck, any documentary by/with William Gibson sounds pretty cool.

This one sounds like a cyberpunk version of the film I’d like to make, in which James Lileks and I are filmed in a 1959 Eldorado convertible, as we visit malls, breweries, and flea markets across America.

JIM DUNNIGAN HAS AN INSIGHTFUL-AS-USUAL LOOK at the war. Here’s an excerpt:

Many of the plans of Islamic terrorists get pretty murky if you try and look too far ahead. Taking on the West appears more as an act of despair. After all, Islamic radicals took control of Iran and Afghanistan, and brought nothing but misery. In actual fact, most Islamic terrorists are still trying to overthrow the existing governments in Islamic nations. International terrorism, against Western targets, was always a lot more difficult, and thus rather rare. But the September 11, 2001 attacks gave many Islamic terrorists the idea that they could actually bring down the West. The fact that there has not been another attack in the United States since 911, and only one in Western Europe, is often overlooked. Symbolism is powerful. If you can’t deal with reality, call in al Jazeera and show them your best symbolism. This approach made al Qaeda stand out, even though it was but one of many Islamic radical organizations.

The battle against Moslem governments has not been going so well either. But this really doesn’t matter, because Islamic terrorists have their hands full carrying out any attacks at all anywhere. The American invasion of Iraqi in 2003 enraged many Islamic radicals, and caused them to launch more attacks inside Islamic countries. The main result of this was to reveal how weak the Islamic terrorists actually were, how shallow their support was among Moslem populations, and how effective the governments in Moslem nations were in fighting back.

As I said, it’s just an excerpt. Read the whole thing.

TOM MAGUIRE DOES THE MATH that Paul Krugman, er, didn’t.

MERYL YOURISH notes that something seems to be happening in Israel, and it seems to be something good.

LT. SMASH REPORTS from a counter-counter-inaugural. Good work.

HAVE I BEEN UNFAIR TO JAMES DOBSON over the SpongeBob affair? According to this editorial from ToonZone, the cartoon website, yes, I have, by falling for the New York Times’ spin:

As Reuters describes it, Christian groups are attacking a video; the various cartoon characters and entertainers who appear in it are being criticized indirectly (if at all) for lending themselves to an agenda that these critics deplore. As the Times describes it, though, these groups are specifically attacking SpongeBob. And by sticking in an early and gratuitous reference to SpongeBob’s popularity with gay men (a point utterly irrelevant to a story about the video), the Times creates the impression that Dobson is attacking SpongeBob for being a gay icon. No wonder a casual reader comes away with the impression that Dobson is attacking SpongeBob for being gay. . . .

And in making SpongeBob sound like a martyr, it appears to be trying to piggyback a rival agenda onto his very thin shoulders: Save SpongeBob from the bluenoses!

Cartoons don’t deserve this. SpongeBob doesn’t deserve this. And SpongeBob’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg, certainly doesn’t deserve to have his creation kidnapped and turned into a giant puppet in some freak protest parade, no matter what its cause.

To Dobson and the Times I’ve a simple message: Get your hands out of SpongeBob’s square pants.

And here’s Dobson’s statement. I disagree with Dobson, of course, on all sorts of issues, but it’s still important to be clear what’s he’s actually doing, and not to let other people put words in his mouth. I should have been more skeptical of the Times, which has apparently gotten so unreliable that you need to turn to Reuters for more accurate reporting . . . .