HAIR STYLES BOOMING IN INDIA

I've worn the same hair style since age 12, when I decided to be a dancer. I'm not very venturesome, but I adventured, experimented a lot, with far-out clothes.

My favorite head-turning outfits were thin cotton, wild print blouses and dresses from India, and also, voluminous, floating cotton, Indian culottes, with bangles, beads, and dangling earrings.

I love to buy clothes from India, and they love to buy ours -- but hair, according to my friend who owns a Greenwich Village boutique -- hair is the thing in India.

(My friend is a streaked blonde, with sparkles in her hair, nowadays.)

She says in Delhi, you make an appointment with Jawed Habib at his Cut It Out salon, or Priyanka Chopra, the expert in multi-color dye jobs. If you're brave, Siti Channel gives wild cuts wearing a blindfold, or you can try Doordarshan's "hair-cut with fire."

Or drop in at Vikram Mohan's Chaisalon. It's what "with it" people in India are doing these days.

In India, the salon or the barber-shop is no longer a chair in front of mirror that's stuck to a tree trunk. It's a spot with two or three places to sit, and an assortment of imported lotions, shampoos, hair dyes, wigs, weaves, and all the latest tools.

There are a dozen salons in Delhi, but Jawed Habib, who's a leader, is planning a chain of "Bounce" Salons in smaller cities and towns, where satellite television ads, and "Bollywood" celebrities have inspired the "Tier 2" hairstyling "IT" market, and the "Dhoni" Bollywood dream come true.

"Tier 2" -- "Dhoni?" What's "IT?" What's "Bolly" wood? My store-keeper friend used terms I'd never heard before.

Tier 2 is basically the people who use the longer, larger words and ideas (beyond simple basic cat, dog, house, baby English) -- words that appear in instruction books -- synonyms, antonyms, adjectives, adverbs that are useful in writing and talking. ( And handling the help-line phones for Dell computers, Microsoft, Earthlink, Time Warner, amd Verizon.)

And Dhoni? "Dhoni" was a small town boy who made a big name for himself, got fame and fortune, as the captain of the winning cricket-playing team in India.

"Bollywood" is a café in San Francisco -- an atmospheric meeting place, for food, music, and fun people. Bollywoods are cropping up everywhere in India, apparently, because of the exploding "IT" business.

"IT" is "information technology" -- if you have a computer, or high-speed Internet, you know what that is -- it's an intrinsic part of the Tier 2 world, that's expanding the middle-class in and around Bombay, Delhi and many of the smaller towns in India

Habib has 155 salons, 42 training academies, and Hair Espresso outlets (where cuts are only two dollars). The "IT" people, especially those doing help-line work, have "disposable income" (money left over after they've paid their basic bills).

My friend (for years, she's nagged me to cut my hair), said if I went to India, her hair stylist would tell me to get a "Rapunzel-Barbie doll cut." It's big with long-haired women in India right now. Men often ask for Bollywood superstar, Shah Rukh Khan's hair style. (Like us, most of the things they do to look good, are inspired by what's on TV and in the Movies.)

Since things in our world inspire India, will their "wild" hair become our latest fad? Will men be getting the Doordashan "fire cut" Are we going back to pink, orange, purple, green hair, or locks sprinkled with sparkle dust?

Where's it heading? Will Bosley hair weaves be advertised? What about "use it before you lose it" monoxidil?

Hair loss is the beginning of growing old. (I remember the days when "growing old" was something wonderful I looked forward to -- I wanted to be able to stay up late, pick out what to wear to school every day.)

In India, with Tier 2 people in the IT business, earning disposable money, dining at Bollywoods -- with their hair treatments, dyes, perms, fire cuts -- thinning hair is an inevitability. Though it sounds like progress in India, it sounds as if "punk" is coming back, and our out of date styles are going to be IN again -- boomeranging back and forth across the oceans.

My friend wasn't kidding about fire cut -- there's already a place that gives them in DC. Have a look.

VANCOUVER OLYMPICS

I watched the figure skating finals and here's what I thought.

HOPPER, EDWARDS, & WOODS

Dennis Hopper is dying from prostate cancer that's metastasized, and he's divorcing his wife. He's played wonderful villains who are ugly, brutal. sadistic, and it's difficult to know if this is the real Dennis, or another character he's playing, in order to hold onto his money.

Metastasis means that the cancer has spread from one part of the body to another -- the cancer cells forming secondary tumors like those in the original, primary tumor. I wonder if the "Billy" character Hopper created in "Easy Rider" is spreading, taking over Hopper's mind and sensibilities?

Some people who know Hopper, think so. Others feel that Hopper is protecting his estate. Victoria, his fifth and current wife, who's objecting to some of the expensive experimental therapies Hopper is trying; she may want to break the prenuptial agreement they have, and make sure she inherits all his money.

I think of Dennis Hopper (we've met) as a cactus. He's always been a man in the dessert, needing very little from nature, surviving, growing more prickly as he's aged. Even so, battling with his wife right now, seems like an extremely parched, masochistic way, a Dennis Hopper movie character's way to live his final days.

Why not share, and enjoy moments with his wife and daughter and their mutual friends -- why gather the money he's earned around himself, and fuss over it -- why not spend it on things he and his wife and six-year-old daughter could do together?

There's something similar in the Elizabeth Edwards' story, she with her stage-four incurable cancer. After writing her book, getting things off her chest -- after the National Inquirer's latest exposé on her husband striking her, and denying, then admitting that he fathered a child with the other woman -- s-t-o-p.

Enough is enough! Why go for a legal separation, or divorce, or any legal, public, ritual to break off what connects them?

What purpose does it serve? Mr. and Mrs. John Edwards are connected by the work they've shared, things they've done for people over the years. What's wrong with going on gracefully, graciously, neatly and thoroughly, with projects they've set in motion?

I'm just feeling the unity the "loving Edwards couple" projected, before and during the campaign years. And have somehow continued projecting, despite the ups and downs and painful revelations about his infidelity.

Both of them seem to be struggling to maintain what they are. John and Elizabeth are very adult, educated, sophisticated, generous, "people" persons. I wish I could convey to them what they'd probably convey to another couple, who came to them for advice, with similar problems.

What about the Tiger Woods and Elin story? They're not a king and queen, and aren't geared up or prepared to live in the spotlight -- the spotlights of television and gossip columnists who thrive on what celebrities are doing, wearing, and playing at.

I'm not shocked, amazed, surprised, or even critical of the bad things Tiger has done -- I'm shocked, critical and amazed by the huge, ludicrous focus of the media on his private life, his morality, and now his apology.

We certainly don't need the media's analysis of his explanation to them -- but oh yes, of course, we're going to hear it. "He should have -- " "He shouldn't have --" "Why didn't he say --?" "He said "sorry" how many times ...?"

Okay, we're worried about ourselves, health, health care, money, the wars, race prejudice, gay marriage, Tea Partiers, terrorism, the national debt -- and because we can't solve those problems, they're festering, continually erupting, while we primly, with pinched-mouth tut-tuts, focus on a young, good-looking, interracial couple. And tell each other thoughtfully, what they should or shouldn't do.

Should the Hoppers divorce? Maybe the battle with her gives him energy to fight for his life. Should the Edwards go their separate ways? Maybe the public spectacle gives her energy to stay alive, and helps him pull himself together, stop standing in the corner like a "bad boy," and get some work done.

What famous people ought to do is always an interesting diversion from what I need to do.

What I need to figure out, is what to write about tomorrow, and which post to use for Airbroadcasting's next new video. And stop preaching "leave them alone."

I'll say it once more quietly -- we don't really know these people and the stories behind the story in the news. We need to back away and pay attention to other things.

WE ARE THE WORLD

The gathering of those familiar faces, those familiar voices -- the symphony of sound and glorious unity they created, to reach out and help people all over the world.

They did it. Oh my ... I wish this could be played today at Blair House, when they're talking about passing some kind of health care plan ...

"We are the world" -- we really are the world now, more than ever.

ICE DANCING

These two dancers D A N C E. Their movement isn't steps, or ice skating tricks. It is, to my eye, beautiful, excellent, lovely -- real dancing.

It's not always that the very best contenders win, but Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir did win the Gold for Ice Dancing in Vancouver Monday night. And they are the best -- the best dancers, the best performers, the best Ice Dancing team.

YOUR LOVEMAKING ACCOMPLISHMENTS!

There's a Website you can use to record who you did it with, when you did it, where you did it, and how good was it.

Mmm. Thinking this is porno, this isn't my cup of tea, I visited the Website.

IJustMadeLove.com starts with a sign in page, a map of the world you click to show where you are, a button to click to confirm "I just made love." Then you zoom in on the street, the place -- hotel, apartment, car, beach, bed. There are options -- you can indicate homosexual, hetero, did you use a condom, what position. (There's a set of outlined shapes in the more common positions, or you can describe what you've invented.)

You can explore other people's "lays" on a global, or local scale. (I couldn't help being amused -- thinking of Ed , our neighbor who plays rock and roll infuriatingly loud when he's making love -- it used to drive us crazy -- now, thank the Lord, he's maybe, a once a month guy. Maybe Ed will enroll?)

Then there's a place for comments. You can comment on your performance or your partners, give yourself grades. And photos can be uploaded, when you're ;sharing an adventure. (There's a warning --"No porno!")

IJustMadeLove.com prevents you from writing up a second event for a "realistic 20 minutes." (They're discouraging braggarts, but maybe you can submit an affidavit.)

The founder, Cyprian Ciec'kiewcz, a 26-year-old, Polish computer programmer, with a master's from the Polish-Japanese Institute of Computer Technology, started the Website back in October 2009, with just a few friends who told their friends, and it didn't take long to get a few hundred, then a thousand, and soon there were businesses who were ready, willing and able to advertise.

So it's free. Nice Ciec'kiewcz is carefully expanding, keeping the verbiage "nice," so that IjustMadeLove is a pleasant place to record your sexual activities. Newspapers, magazines, and other advertisers, are paying for it (porn people are turned down). The "London Telegraph," "Playboy Magazine," and Stephen Colbert have expressed interest in investing in the site.

Ciec'kiewcz uses IJustMadeLove after each of his own bed-hopping adventures. "Beginners" are welcome to talk about their first time, as well those for whom sex is favorite sport.

According to the "London Telegraph," Americans are in the lead for "lays." 804 were from the United Kingdom, compared to 4,409 in the United States, and seven, just seven, from Saudi Arabia admitted to having sexual encounters.

Where is this Website heading? Will it become another My Space, Facebook, Twitter, or Blippy?

I'm thinking this thing of sharing yourself-- clothes on, clothes off -- is because of our cell phones -- they're carried everywhere -- they tell you where to go, what to buy, how to get there -- you text -- you get definitions -- numbers, calculations, information about history, geography, politics, and sinful celebrities -- so why not your love life?

Eek, I'm croaking inwardly -- this won't catch on! But, maybe it will ...

Those shiny, lightweight, pretty. jewel-like shapes that fit so sweetly in your hand -- who needs a psychiatrist -- it's better than a brother, sister, cousin, parent -- your phone's your most objective, most trustworthty, dear, best pal, friend.

But ... I don't want to sound too old-fashioned, but you could buy a diary ... or write a letter to yourself about what you like, or don't like about your sex life. Mail it -- you won't get it for a week or so -- then read it, and see how you feel about what you did or didn't do.

Or ... what the hell -- go to the address bar of your browser, be brave, and type Http://www.IIjustMadeLove. com.

WHAT'S WRONG IN REALITY TV

This picture, is of two of the stars of "Survivor, 2000 in Borneo" which was the beginning of the realty show trend.

James Poniwozik. journalist and television critic, writes Time Magazine's "Tuned In" column, and a blog with the same name.

His latest column -- What's RIGHT with Reality TV, tells us how the genre has "gone from guilty pleasure to quintessentially American entertainment."

I think American entertainment has gone to the dogs. It started with the first "Survivor" -- the competitions, tribal council meetings, voting off tribal members did not create suspense for me -- the cast (real folks, not actors) playing fear and exhaustion ... well, let me just say, I was always aware of the camera men, and TV crew hiding in the bushes.

The winner, (having spent a lot of time in and out of jail, fighting not to pay taxes, admitting that he cheated to win) is still a name -- Richard Hatch is a celebrity kook, lawbreaker, liar.

"Big Brother " -- the cast that the producers carefully picked after many interviews and consultations with psychiatrists, are unpleasantly egotistic, self aware -- peeping at them in bed and in the bathroom is silly, and boring.

"Amazing Race" isn't watchable. "America's Got Talent" and "Idol" -- the judges are more interesting than most of the talent. "Biggest Loser" stars are repulsively desperate. All the love shows -- bachelors hoping to get laid, girls acting slutty to win, make me cringe, and the 16-year-old pregnant girls, the autopsy lady figuring out why people died, are dreary, saddening.

It's sad, also, that amateurs are getting the jobs -- that more professional actors than ever, are ending up in the unemployment lines.

If reality shows are quintessentially American culture -- wow -- we've been reducing art to what's prosaic, and often, gross.

So, Mr. Poniwozik. though you're fatherly protective of the genre, your tuned in insights don't lift the subject out of the mud, the quicksand.

As your article unfolds, you conclude: "It's the burgeoning career field ... It's the content mill for the cable-tabloid-blog machine ... It's a valid career choice for some like Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson Elizbeth Hasselbeck ... for others, it has enabled a life of lucrative famousness ... TV appeals to the worst in us is ... Anything you do to win can be justified as playing the game ... It makes people famous for nothing rather than rewarding hard work ..."

I think the Reality Shows are awful -- boring, dull tiresome bad stuff that is inspiring and encouraging would-be artists, day-dreaming kids to try hard, try with all their might and main, to become famous, big name nothingers.

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL

Anytime I see or hear Elvis, I'm captured.

When I read about "Viva Viva Elvis," the new show Cirque du Soleil's presenting, I had to stop what I needed to do, and read, and read some more.

Twyla Tharpe's choreography for "Moving Out" and "Come Fly with Me," the Broadway shows she's created, and for the movie version of "Hair," is uniquely inventive, exciting -- capturing the crackling energy of dance that's dancing, more than steps. It's not the flow, or the incredible lifts, splits, leaps, acrobatics that you haven't seen before. There's something about Twyla Tharpe's eye, and what her body sees, feels and communicates to the dancers' bodies (not their souls, their bodies) that becomes real dancing.

Why am I mentioning Twyla? (I shared a program with her in Spoleto, and we did not hit it off -- I was too involved with drama and she was, at that time, into abstract dance.) But now she's grown into a top level choreographer, like Jerry Robbins, and Martha Graham, who have done full evening works in dance, that are considered masterpieces.

Well, I went searching for the names of the choreographers who've created for Cirque du Soleil, the huge ... what to call them? -- dance plays? no -- dance opuses? no -- dance paintings with bodies and costumes, and objects -- ropes, umbrellas, tops, balloons, batons, yards of cloth, springs, sleds ... I've run out of words because the invention of the huge concoction of a show that is Cirque du Soleil, never stops -- it goes beyond my imagination. (And I have a big imagination.)

In black light, in smoke, in shimmering strobe lights, in water, in the air -- where ever, what ever the locale -- someone in the Cirque family does something that no one else can do.

Twyla Tharpe is an exceptionally inventive choreographer. Cirque Du Soleil takes movement beyond Twyla Tharpe, Jerome Robbins, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine. (I threw in Balanchine's name, but he wasn't a creator of new ways for the body to express itself. He transformed ballet steps into music, and fused them.)

I looked for the name, the names of who started Cirque du Soleil, in dance books, encyclopedias, and online references, and gathered some. I thought, after I saw the first show, that it was Franco Dragone, but he left, and others replaced him. And the unreal (what I have to call miraculous creations), have kept happening -- full-length evenings, innovative concepts, and fulfillment of the concepts.

I think the main creators are: Guy Laliberté, Daniel Gautier, Guy Caron, Franco Dragone, Daniel Lamarre, Gilles Ste-Croix, Vincent Paterson, Armand Thomas,. Daniele Finzi Pasca, David Shiner and Deborah Brown, a gymnast/dancer/choreographer. (Skim the names, no point in holding onto them. Deborah Brown's name appears often, and Laliberte even more often. I mention them out of respect, but the individual names detract from my message.)

There is nothing in theater that I know of that is better, larger, more amazing, fantastique, mesmerizing, "mind blowing," more sheerly inventive, evocative, stunning, as Cirque du Soleil. It sets your thoughts, your eyes, your ears, your skin, your heart, your muscles on fire.

If I listed all of Martha Graham's works, Merce Cunningham's, Paul Taylor's, Alvin Ailey's, or Twyla Tharpe's, .it would be impressive, but not as grand -- not full-length, fully mounted, large shows, each as different in scope, idea, and style, as these Cirque masterpieces:

Mystère, O, La Nouba, Zumanity, Kà, Love, Zaia, Zed, Criss Angel Believe, Viva Elvis, Saltimbanco, Alegría, Wintuk, Les chemins Invisibles, Les Échassiers, Dralion, Nouvelle Experience, Delerium, Quidam, Varekai, Corteo, Koozå. Ovo.

That's it. Describing each of these works involves too much name-dropping, and boring detail.

"Viva Viva Elvis," the man, the talent, echos. Cirque's "Love" show (based on the Beatles), echos, because Elvis and the Beatles were so much a part of my life. Just reading the reviews on "Viva Viva Elvis" is exciting -- it certainly sounds as if the show is thrilling and touching. I love to watch Elvis, love to hear him sing, love his music, and l sooner or later I'll get to see it.

I've said all I can say. I just want to salute the builders who built Cirque du Soleil.

HERO REVISITED

We moved our television studio out of JC's office -- it was hard for him to work, with light stands and stools, and the extra connections cluttering up his desks.

We had fun, chatting again about the kid who lives on Camano Island, near Seattle. We're more relaxed, upstairs, sitting in our red living room, with our supper simmering on the stove around the corner. It brought back memories of life in Redmond, Washington. (It's also the home of Microsoft.)

We lived there while JC was playing Holling The Bartender, in the television series, "Northern Exposure," and we produced my play "Shattering Panes" in Seattle's off-off Broadway, Aha Theater, with Seattle "kids" in our cast and stage crew.

Fun kids, who prided themselves on their liberation -- they looked like hippies from the sixties, with their long hair, Hawaiian shorts and sleeveless shirts in the middle of cold winter. Also, their "liberation" was behind the times -- our hiring a black actor to play the groovy CAT, who used black slang and put down "whites" in the play, seriously bothered them.

OlLYMPICS ARE WEARING ME OUT

Here's the good news from last night...



Here's my NOT good news. I don't know if other people all over the country feel this, but there's too much Canada-for-Canada dialogue between the hosts -- it's like a theme song, played too often.

Especially because I read what happened to skaters and snowboarders who arrived early, hoping to try out the slopes and rinks. They were not allowed to use the areas until after the official opening of the Olympics -- they had to hang over the fences and watch the Canadians practicing.

I feel the local rah-rah pride stuff is belittling what the Olympics stands for.

Anyhow, while watching the men skaters earlier Wednesday evening, before the snowboarding, fear was in the air, like a jinx.

After Yevgeny Plushenko who did a quad and scored high, the next guy, and then the next goofed -- trying their triples, actually fell -- kerplunk -- and of course they were out, even as they bravely went on with their routines. And the jinx continued to infect all the skaters that followed. Even in the next group and the next group.

(Why oh why do so many of the skaters use quirky sounding "current" popular music, that doesn't support what they're doing?)

Evan Lysacek, the American, was tense -- so tense that it emanated from our kitchen TV. In an interview before his turn on the ice, he'd bragged, promising he'd win the gold (oh dear, never never should you do that before a contest). Well, he managed to do that first series of tricks quite well (triples, not a quad) but poor Evan was so pressured, so uptight, nervous, that he wept while he was waiting for his score.

I was relieved, but after he got his 90-something score, I didn't want to watch any more, and changed the channel.

We missed Shaun White's triumphant win in snowboarding, but here's what I found on line. The music the film people superimposed, is Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana." This video shows Shaun's fantastic double twist.

LIVING LONGER

Hold on to your wits! There's a new THING to do! Is it a fad? Or is it a fortuitous conglomeration of factors -- like where we're at with our wars -- the untrustworthy politicians -- the possibility that some nut could press a button that might start the end of the world?

Maybe now IS the time to consider if, and why you and I might want to live longer.

There's a pill that will increase your life span. It's called "Resveratrol." Note the syllables, and pronounce it -- "Res vera trol." Should it be at the top of my get it/buy it/try it list?

It has amazed, impressed, and excited professors, doctors, health institutes, and Oprah, Barbara Walters, "Good Morning America," Time Magazine, and dozens of dot-coms. So it's something to consider.

(But what about the other miracle potions, that faded when the last new one hit? Is it like Atkin's "Diet Revolution?" Or another cookie diet? )

Well ... It's a pill that combines the ingredients in red wine, grapes and peanuts, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz.

(Oz has been on the Oprah Winfrey Show -- Oprah swears by him.)

The fact is, according to many reliable medical resources, there are new, very hopeful facts about longevity. Scientists say that a baby born in 2000 will live to be 100. And if the baby's female, she may live longer. Doctors are saying there are specific things to do right now, today, that will extend your life.

The first step for a longer life span, is to get back some of what we lose by living our over-fed, over-stressed, under-active lifestyles.

Scientists are thinking if you eat less you'll live longer -- restricting calories extends animal life, so they're testing -- they want to know if going hungry would help us too.

Dr. Oz, who is vice-chairman and professor of Surgery at Columbia University, a best-selling author, now host of the daily, nationally syndicated "The Doctor Oz Show," has the following suggestions for living longer.

●Take Resveratrol.

● Get 15 minutes a day in the sun, or take Vitamin D 1000, and Calcium 1000 with magnesium.

● Chose foods that look the same when you eat them as how they look when they come out of the ground.

● Oz recommends daily, vigorous physical activities.

● Oz recommends sleeping more than 7 hours.

● Have a purpose.

"Have a purpose!" Work -- being constructively busy -- learning a language, gardening, writing, painting, quilt-making, teaching, helping kids, elders -- take on a project, the bigger the better! (That's what I'm always saying to my friends.)

I looked at Oz's exercises -- some could do more harm then good. And taking Resveratrol -- yes, it's already being marketed. One Website says two a day -- a bottle of 60 tabs cost $4.99. Quite a few other Websites are offering a free starter bottle, varied prices, variations on the name, and the ingredients, and they're touting weight-loss, as well as energy. I'm not sure if what they're selling is a diet pill, a scam, or real Resveratrol.

Also, one well-known doctor says "soon" you'll be able to increase your life span -- another says "10 years" from now -- "by 2050" says another. Is it like the vitamin A retinol face-creams, like the one-hour-face-lifts that promise to make you look younger?

Oz is our latest new guru.

He's certainly an energetic, charming, articulate man with good ideas, like Oprah's Dr. Phil.

Dr Phil's show is interesting but I wouldn't consult Dr. Phil.

Dr. Oz's show is very interesting but I wouldn't consult Dr. Oz -- he's a fast-talking super charming, super salesman -- also, what Oprah falls in love with in books, styles, and gurus, I automatically don't trust -- she's a guru, and gurus are not for me.

NANCY & TONYA DAYS IN THE HEADLINES

Former ice skater, Nancy Kerrigan, is at the Vancouver Olympics, as a reporter for Entertainment Tonight.

January 1994
(In 1994 she was competing in the Detroit figure skating finals -- out of the blue, someone appeared and bashed her knee with a stick. It didn't take long for people to suspect it had something to do with her competitor, Tonya Harding.)

One look at Nancy Kerrigan and I'm remembering her lovely, neat arabesque -- not high but perfectly placed -- her graceful, not very exciting, but always perfectly controlled double lutz, double toe loop -- her gliding along in her white, virginal-looking costume.

I'm remembering Tonya Harding -- her flashy outfits, her rather hefty figure -- always practicing her triple axels. She was the first woman ever to do a triple axel in the short program, the first to perform two triple axels in a single competition, the first ever to do a triple axel combination, with double toe loop.

Why did Tonya get her boyfriend to hire a pal to hurt Nancy's knee? Was it pillow talk, her whispering "I'm better than Nancy, if only I could get Nancy to quit?" Was it a feeling that everything wonderful happened to girls like Nancy, not to girls from the wrong side of the tracks? Or was it desperate, overwhelming ambition?

The details of Kerrigan's career before the shocking event are foggy. Not the event -- Nancy Kerrigan sobbing, rubbing her knee, moaning -- "Why, oh Why ?"

The media kept replaying that "why oh why" moment, while we were pulling for the girl, praying for her, aware of her pain as she tackled physical therapy. Golly, wow! There she was -- brave Nancy in her skates, practicing her short program. She performed it two times in a row in order to defeat her fears, and then, brave, wonderful Nancy performed it in the recap of the Detroit contest.

All this, while Tonya was investigated, then penalized, then barred from skating by the American Figuring Skating Association and the Olympic committee, who sent Nancy Kerrigan to the Olympics, instead of the second-place winner (much better skater), Michelle Kwan.

The name, the fame Nancy got, got her 9.5. million dollars from Disney, if she left the Olympics before the awards ceremony (she won the silver), and came home that night, to be in the Disney parade the next day.

In America on parade day, a camera microphone caught Kerrigan saying "this is dumb ... this is corny." There was talk about her being bitchy grumpy.

Nevertheless, Kerrigan's agent got her more money, higher-profile endorsements than Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi. (Kerrigan fit the "all-American" image, and Yamaguchi is of Japanese ancestry.)

Nancy K won many things as the years passed. She's had a big career, performing starring roles in ice shows, small parts in movies, money from endorsements, and a graceful retirement -- marriage to her agent, and two beautiful children.

What happened to Tonya Harding? When she admitted that she helped her boyfriend cover up the attack, proceedings to remove her from the 1994 Olympic team were initiated. Later, avoiding a jail sentence, Harding pleaded guilty, and received three years probation, $160,000 fine, and 500 hours of community service.

It was the beginning of slide, as if she were a snow-boarding, "butt-boarding." speeding down a long hill.

As the newlywed Tonya, her husband and the pal he paid to whack Nancy's knee, were further investigated, Tonya's calls to the police gained her page-two headlines. I thought (most people thought) "It serves her right" when we read about intruders, then robbers, dire threats, and a shocking gang rape.

(It occurred to me that Tonya was inventing these attacks to get attention, and I felt just a little sorry for her -- mastering a triple axel took years of practice, nerve, and skill, and now she was banned for life from participating in figure skating as a skater or coach.)

Her pornographic "Wedding Video" (clips of her and her husband making love), got plenty of attention, especially when stills from it were published in Penthouse Magazine. Her sequined outfit, her chubby appearance on a pro-wrestling show was booed; her one-night-stand in Portland with her band (the Golden Blades), got her booed off the stage. It was pathetic, and sort of amusing, typical Tonya Harding "bad taste."

There were mentions, here and there-- she was being stalked by someone driving a white Lincoln Town Car, she played a criminal in a film, "Breakaway." She was abducted at knife-point outside her home by a bushy-haired man who stole her truck.

These incidents, and her calls to the police, seemed to happen frequently -- I wondered if she was inventing them?

While Harding attempted a comeback as a professional speed skater, a fight with a new boyfriend got her booked on fourth-degree domestic violence assault charges, plus three days in jail, and that ended her return to skating.

During Harding's boxing career, she was cited for drunk driving, and canceled a boxing match, claiming she was getting death threats. Then, after not boxing for a year she fought again, lost the fight and retired from boxing, telling reporters it was because of her asthma.

After a 911 call about two masked men assaulting her, she was cited for being under the influence, then at 5 a.m. the next morning, a "personal friend" called the police and said, "Tonya's freaking out, she's seeing animals!"

I skimmed the article -- it sounded like she'd hit bottom, but she'd hit bottom too many time before.

Meanwhile, the Kerrigan-Harding affair was the central subject in Elizabeth Searle's novella, "Celebrities In Disgrace," which was adapted into a chamber opera, produced at Tufts and American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Later it was turned into a Rock Opera, that premiered on the West Coast in 2008. Tonya Harding attended the premiere.

(So, she wasn't freaking out anymore -- she was alive and kicking.)

She was the subject of "Tonya's Twirls", a song, a lament for lost innocence. Her autobiography, "The Tonya Tapes" was published in 2008. Her role in the Kerrigan attack has been widely referenced in sitcom episodes, music videos, and even in a speech by Barack Obama (according to Wikipedia).

Well, one of her dreams came true -- Tonya Harding is a NAME -- she's had more than 15 minutes of fame.

Why do I re-tell this story? Because it's an American tale that should be told or taught in schools, to kids who imitate what they see and read about, and dream the dreams of fame at any price.

Campaigning in Iowa, Barack Obama told a crowd, "Folks said there's no way Obama has a chance unless he goes and kneecaps the person ahead of us -- does a Tonya Harding," Obama joked. "We decided that's not the kind of campaign we wanted to run," he said.

So strip -- take off all your clothes, kids? Stalk celebrities? Threaten suicide, murder, act crazy, do something outrageous-- do anything to be somebody?

Tonya Harding conquered three axels. Wow! That's power, talent, a winning, stick-to-it energy -- it could have gained her other things, gained her much more than what she has now.

CRUEL COMMENTS

As I was writing about two beautiful figure skaters, I came across a fascinating negative criticism of the Olympics by Christopher Hitchens.

In his recent Newsweek article titled "Fool’s Gold," Hitchens told how the Olympics and other international competitions bred conflict and brought out the worst in human nature.

It was fun to read, and it rang the bell that always rings when something is over-advertised, like the up-and-coming opening ceremony that promises it will outdo the last stupendous ceremony (which went on too long, and put me to sleep. )

Hitchens sifted through sports history, and wrote about "the most rank and depressing traits of the human personality." His article was decorated with revealing photos of some Olympian contenders looking evilly jealous, gritting their teeth, grimacing, stifling groans.

Like a doctor, Hitchens examined the weaknesses in teams, their leaders, and fans. And cleverly, constantly interspersed snide remarks, and slightly self-derisive humor, especially when he described the Vancouver ski team's spiteful, petty conduct. (As they rehearsed on the mountain, they refused to let outsiders test the ski run till the Olympics opened.)

Hitchens discussed how contests around the world led to orgies of hatred, and the steady decline of friendship between various countries' ethnic groups.

And, in italicized asides, Hitchens threw in, conversationally, remarks like -- "Wait! Have you ever had a discussion about higher education that wasn't polluted with babble about the college teams, and the amazingly lavish, on-campus facilities for the cult of athletic warfare?"

Returning to the Vancouver bosses with their "bloatedly over-funded spitefest," and other "don't care people" who ordered the "choppering of white stuff from the north" (to bring snow to the slopes), Hitchens ended his article with an amusing, prayerful, spiteful sentence -- "Don't let it snow, don't let it snow, don't let it snow."

Gee, I thought, as I put away the magazine, I would have written something about competition -- the mind and its instinct fears -- the courage it takes to transform a body and its reflexes into a winning machine. And it occurred to me that the 60-year-old Hitchens must have had athletic dreams once upon a time -- he's blaming what he couldn't do, on the powers that be.

I looked him up, and learned he's an ardent admirer of George Orwell, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson, and renowned for his excoriating critiques of Mother Teresa, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Henry Kissinger, among others. Also Forbes Magazine lists Christopher Hitchens as "one of the 25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media."

Oops, I'm thinking ... I'm attacking a famous attacker for seizing upon what he dislikes, and he's just doing his thing.

Reading more about Hitchens, I came across an exceptionally nasty, incisive commentary by another very famous columnist, Mark Steyn -- wow -- another famous intellectual writer who was writing about what I was writing about'

Steyn was lambasting, destroying everyone connected to the story of the Underwear Bomber ... whom he calls the "pantybomber" (hinting, and sort of tinting Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab as a homosexual).

I can't do justice to the tour de force, brilliant, nasty, ugly, scratching, stabbing, killer style of Steyn -- his poisonously sardonic insights, his borderline "sophomoric" distortions, and his use of big words, like "logorrheic."

I didn't want to look it up, so I read another page -- then, went back and looked it up, and learned it means "overly, extremely loquacious."

Annoyed with myself for being impressed, admiring and disliking what I read, I read on and learned ... ah ha! Steyn occasionally substitutes for Russ Limbaugh and Sean Hannity -- major bad guys in my No-fly, Cover- Your-Ears list.

Steyn is better (worse) than Hitchens. Both keep the reader wanting to read on, like page-turner, best-selling writers.

Gee, I was riveted to what these guys write ... should I imitate them?

NO! I can't! I don't have the background. Anyhow, I see villains, usually, with a touch of empathy ... pity...

Yes, I admire the style, the free mingling of introspective remarks and asides, as if the writer is reporting what the world sees, and letting you know that he finds it ridiculous, nonsensical.

So thanks, but no thanks, Christopher Hitchens and Mark Steyn -- you amused and entertained me, but your vision is yellowed, decayed by disillusion. I'd like to read something you write about what you love, admire, respect.

UNDERWEAR BOMBER

You probably know most of the story. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab,. a Muslim Nigerian, attempted to detonate plastic explosives that he'd hidden in his underwear on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, as it was hovering over Detroit.

He's been charged, and indicted on six criminal counts, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder of 289 people. Awaiting further investigation and a trial, he's currently in a federal prison in Milan, Michigan.

He's 23 years-old.

It's painful for me to look at his now famous, young face. I can't help thinking of what he did to his parents and his brothers and sisters.

What he tried to do ended all the dreams he had, and irreparably damaged his family. He is the youngest of 16 children. His Yemeni mother is his father's second wife. His father is one of the most prominent, richest men in Africa.

Underneath Mutallab's pious, deeply religious Muslim beliefs, there must be a son's rage, a need to destroy his father.

Back and forth, government officials, Senators, Congressmen, police, the FBI are asking how did this happen? Why, with the red flags on his name, wasn't he on the watch list? Which agency is to blame? Who didn't inform whom? Was it negligence? Shouldn't someone be fired?

Was the arrest and interrogation handled properly? Could the police have found out more? Why was Mutallab read his Miranda rights? What about water-boarding him? Why did it take three days for Obama to comment? Is Obama's weak on terrorism?

On and on, the same questions. I know a person's politics by their answers. theories, and comments.

I keep thinking about that other guy -- when was it -- was it 2001 when were we aware of John Wallace Lindh, a young, rebellious American citizen who studied at an Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan,

Lindh was captured as an enemy combatant during a violent Taliban prison uprising during our 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. He was charged with 10 counts, including Conspiracy to Murder, Conspiracy to provide material support and resources to foreign terrorist organizations.

He's in prison, sentenced to 20 years. Lindh was 20, born in 1981. Abdul Mutallab was born in 1986. They're children of the eighties.

Over and over, I wonder what attracts these young men, and how to stop Al-Qaeda from recruiting young men like them. How to educate parents, friends, relatives, so that lost, seriously confused, adolescents, desperately needing attention, are noticed, and helped?

Comparing Mutallab's background with that of 9/11 plotters, and London and Madrid metro bombers, I wonder if we're defining the enemy incorrectly. It's not poverty -- it's a vision of God, an intensely philosophical religious concept, an inability to share it with others -- an intense passion to fix what's wrong in the world that's conceived of by educated young men, often college educated child-men, who seek fulfillment in the romanticism of revolution.

We need to educate our children, not protect them from learning all they can about who these child men are, and why they are wrong.

WHO WILL BE THE WINNER ?

I watch the women figure skaters with hawk eyes, but rarely stay interested or involved with a skater's full performance.

The basis by which skaters are judged is "tricks" that take years, and much practicing to perfect. I remember when it was the double lutz-double toe loop. Now it's the triple lutz-triple toe loop. And there are men who do can do a quadruple axel though it hasn't been done yet in a competition.

What gets my attention is what I call "real dancing" -- movement that flows, just happens, and I'm not aware of technique -- I feel as if I'm dancing as I watch. Most of the time, my neck tenses as I'm watching an ice skater make the usual, accelerating half- circle, before taking off into the air for a triple.

I watched Kim Yu-Na at the Korean Skating Championships -- saw most of her program while I was cooking, and saw flashes of energy that made me want to see more. I saw some of Mao Asada's program. She was also interesting -- I wanted to see more. They seemed to be similar looking. Kim Yu-Na was more beautiful, but Mao Asada's legs were better trained balletically.

Today, I studied their films as if I were one of the judges. I went from one film to the other; boring myself, annoying myself for having to work so hard in order to decide which one would get Em's "Gold."

Mao has effortless elevation -- the line of her arabesque, her front extension are exceptionally good -- her flexibility is lovely. She does the triple flip-triple toe loop lightly, and perfectly. And wow -- Mao Asada has moments of "real dancing."

Kim Yu-Na -- her triple lutz-triple toe loop is effortless and brilliant and ... well, the line of her arabesque isn't as high or as perfect as Mao Asada's. Kim Yu-Na has a coltish, too-slender look, but her commitment to each second of movement is ... what? She's exciting, flashier -- non stop, amazingly full out.

Kim Yu-Na, 18, is from South Korea and got the highest score for the short program I saw. Mao Asada, 19 is the pride of Japan, and the first woman to perform two triple axels in one program.

(I'm not an expert in the subtle differences between triple lutz, triple flips, or axels, but real judges are.)

Here's Kim Yu-Na dancing:



Here's Mao Asada dancing:



I would give Mao my award. Who would you pick?

Who will win the finals in Vancouver on February 27th?

FOLLOW THE LEADER

That's the title of an article by Anna Quindlen in Newsweek that keeps haunting me.

She says: "Obama supporters who abandoned the Democrats in Massachusetts showed that 41 percent of those who opposed the Health Care plan weren't sure exactly why. If elected officials are supposed to act based on the wisdom of ordinary people, they're going to need ordinary people to be wiser than that."

Quindlen lays out the reasons why Obama should keep going for the changes --the yes we can that fired up his campaign, and what he's attempted to do during his first year in the White House. She ends her article strongly with -- "A wise man said 'Telling the American people what we think they want to hear, instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won't do.' That man was Barack Obama, and that attitude is one reason he got elected. He should stick to that position, and the American people should embrace it."

That's what I feel, and have said in quite a few posts. Because of who and what Obama is, we cleaved to him instinctively, trusted him, and chose him to lead us.

Stick with him! He's our Pied Piper. Follow him. The other stuff you're hearing is noise.

It's not a child-like belief. My experience, in going for something and getting it -- taught me to hold on tight to what I believe in. Even when the goal looks as if it won't work or it can't happen, hold on tight.

My reasons for supporting Obama have to do with why my support of Obama grew during the campaign, as well as what I've observed during this past year. Though the Health Care bill hasn't happened, and the Stimulus Package isn't working out the way he planned, Obama has not failed -- he's moving ahead, and changing his tactics.

Fretting, second-guessing the White House, fastening onto the aspects of Health Care and the Stimulus that are being attacked -- wondering "Gee, maybe the President's done the wrong thing -- maybe Obama should have done this or that," is making it harder for him to do the job the country needs him to do.

We chose him. We elected him. Now is the time to hold on to why we elected him, and support what he's doing, with the power he gave us with yes we can!

NATURE'S WONDERMENTS

The essence of winter ...




There's a small toll to pay.










Okay, it's tiresome.



but, fun.

WHY DOGS BITE PEOPLE

Pets love to be petted, and talked to, and their eyes talk back to us.




They're playmates but not girl
not guy friends.


This nice obedient bikini clad dog --
I think he knows he looks silly.




They're definitely amusing.



But gee, I'm not sure they like some of the games
some of us play with them.




Don't torture them.



They can't say "ouch" or gee whiz!




Or "I don't like sand!"







This pooch doesn't look happy. I think he wants to tell you "dressing up is for humans!"

She needs a doggie snack, not that
silly outfit.

Pets are for petting, not for getting
laughs.
Kiss 'em, miss 'em
if they run away, or don't want to play.
but love 'em, don't shove 'em
into clothes, that a pup knows
belong to you. Pup can't say "pooh!"

TWO POWERFUL GUYS

Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Committee have big brains with lots of facts and Obama turns to them for advice.

Hmm ... Why them?

I've browsed around and here's what I've learned from the news magazines, networks, and various dot-coms.

Gates, born in Kansas 66 years ago, advised President Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush one and, Bush two.

(That impresses me -- it certainly says other presidents have trusted Gates.)

He's a Republican. (Hmm.) People say he has a photographic mind. Apparently, during Reagan's administration he was a Cold War hawk who saw the Soviet Union as an evil adversary... (Is that why Reagan called them that?) Also, Gates failed to recognize that Mikhail Gorbachev was a true reformer. And Gates said the Soviets would never leave Afghanistan, but they did; he said the Afghan President would never survive the Soviet's departure but the Afghan President stuck around for at least three more years.

(That's four mistakes, and there's more!)

Under Bush, Gates justified the missile-defense program, but under Obama Gates reversed his position -- he took charge of canceling it. And Gates never supported repealing the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, but he's agreed to carry out Obama's order to do just that.

(Whoa -- the Bush stuff bothers me.) Gates is the key adviser for the President on how and when to use military force. Before throwing his support behind General McChrystal's push for a troop surge late last year, Gates warned that the Soviets could not win with 110,000 troops in Afghanistan.

(♪ ♪ "Ac-cen- tu-ate the pos-i-tive ... E -lim-in- ate the neg-a-tive ... Don't mess with mister in between ♪ ♪..." This Gates guy sure does give a lot of negative advice.)

At least he has a sense of humor. Joking about egos in D.C., Gates said, "It's the only place in the world you can see a prominent person walking down lovers' lane holding his own hand."

Thinking positively, I'm figuring maybe his photographic mind is chock full of facts that Obama needs to fend off the Republican attacks.

Fran, my blog coach taught me how to embed video clips, so take a look at Gates -- he's stiffish -- I don't know all the ins and outs, but I have to admit, I like the way he deals with the mistakes he's made.





What about Douglas Elmendorf, the "money numbers guy?" At age 47, a soft-spoken academic (he taught at Harvard before joining the Congressional Budget Committee (CBO), in '93,) he coaches his daughter's soccer team and commutes to work on the subway.

(So he's a penny pincher.)

The latest statement from the CBO is Elmendorf's forecast that the federal deficit will reach $1.35 trillion this year — $4,400 for every American. Delivering the grim budgetary news is his job, but his numbers infuriate people -- some say he's exaggerating costs, others say he's underestimating them.

Here's Elmendorf being grilled, explaining a complicated issue that I don't altogether understand, but I like his fresh-faced, down-to earth, direct way of handling it.





Okay. Money numbers help Obama make his plans -- prepare him for the questions he's got to be able to answer. And Gates -- his long history and his experience help Obama.

These two advisers are not yes-men. They tell the President what he needs to know as he's making decisions for us, holding onto our American values and principles that he's committed to upholding for us.

So lay your numbers on him, Elmendorf! Give Obama your fatherly advice Gates, as much as you want!

We've got a man in the White House who's got a mind of his own.

LATEST NEW STUFF

● Bad/good news -- you'll be reading books on your iPad -- five publishers -- Macmillan, HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster and Hachette signed on with Apple.

● Bad/ sad news -- you'll be paying for reading the New York Times on line in 2011 -- visitors will get a certain number of viewings (not yet disclosed) free, each month before they're asked to pay a flat fee for access. It sounds complicated, indefinite -- but Arthur Sulzberger Jr., company chairman/publisher of the great newspaper that we count on to always be there, said, sort of gingerly, “We can’t get this halfway or three-quarters of the way right. We have to get this really, really right.”

● Mind boggling numbers -- Obama's $3.8 trillion budget, attacked by Republicans as a reckless recipe for fiscal disaster, though Bush's $3.1 trillion budget created the financial crisis that Obama needs the money to solve.

● IN vocabulary -- frenemy, staycation, waterboarding, apocalipstick, shawarma, neuroprotective. cardioprotective, locavore, vlogs, webisodes, prepone (opposite of postpone), and flash mob, in beta, sock puppet, green collar. Plus carry-overs from last year -- mini good news, teachable moment, shovel ready; toxic assets, too big to fail, linguistics, Czar, apps, transparency, tweet; sexting, stimulus; bromance, chillaxin.'

● Good/bad news on jobs -- unemployment down to 9.7 %, but many job hunters have stopped job-hunting, making the unemployment figures look better, when they're worse or more or less the same.

● Bad, big hero Mel Gibson is making a comeback as a bad-good-guy-violent-hero, but ... well, he's a bit over the hill, and sort of, kind of out of style/out of date.

● New Styrofoam -- it's mushroom fungus -- root-like fibers that form "mycelium" -- a non-toxic, fireproof, water resistant, insulation material, that traps more heat than fiberglass.

● Football -- it's been deemed "deadly" by medical experts-- the 90 million people who watched the Super Bowl in Miami don't realize that guys on the teams often end up brain damaged.

● Weird new female doings -- "Vagazzle" and Vag Rejuventation are among the six things the Huffington Post lists, that women do to "fix" their vaginas -- ranging from cheap, cosmetic deodorants to expensive surgical alterations (vaginal rejuvenation, $20,000.) Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, in her new "dating" book, devotes a whole chapter to the subject.

Jennifer Love Hewitt appeared on Lopez Tonight recently, to hawk her new dating book. One of her tips: glue shiny things on your "vajayjay" so it shines like a disco ball.

Whewy!

All I can say is "Happy new decade" -- lets save the NY Times and buy it every Sunday, learn the IN words, sigh over Mel Gibson, insulate our houses with mushrooms, hope for the best on the national budget, job-hunters, and brain damaged football players, and brace ourselves -- here's Jennifer with Lopez -- she gets to the revelations at 2: 40.

JIM CROW

The title caught my eye -- the article in a recent Newsweek was tucked in between other intriguing titles.

Jim Crow means to me what I've seen, what made me cringe throughout my years as a traveling dancer -- performing over a thousand one-night-stands.

Ellis Cose, Black author, columnist and contributing editor, in his article on the tragedy of America's jails, attacks the disparity in crack and cocaine sentencing that has disproportionally hit black men. Cose feels the subject deserves presidential attention.

Describing what Obama has said to the NAACP about African American children being five times more likely to end up in jail, and Obama's mild reaction to the arrest of that Harvard Professor for breaking into his own home, Cose states, "Precisely because of his race, this president must walk on eggshells when approaching a racially charged subject."

What I've seen setting up my show --"We don't "Mr." our niggers" -- and my southern in-laws' casual remarks about Niggers and Jews -- and grade school kids attacking me, shouting "Dirty Jew, you killed Christ!" -- prejudices ME intensely against good White Christians. But it's minor, nothing compared to what all Blacks know, what Obama knows.

I smell race prejudice from this past year with Obama as President. The odiferous evil stink of it, the spoken and unspoken ingrained thing -- it's less than what it was many years ago, but still there.

Jim Crow.

Can this generation kill it? I thought we could. Now, I'm afraid that the Black man in the White House will realize that his presence in the White House is making it harder for Blacks to be what they are.

I'm hoping Obama's understanding of life as a Black will fire him up to stay tall and strong, stay on for a second term in White House.

Despite the hardships, his presence there helps all the Blacks, and helps you and me be what we are.

INNER BODY ART

These 15 pictures arrived in an email from Fran, my blog coach. Her friend and veterinarian, sent them to her (they're making the rounds on email). They were captured using a scanning electron microscope.


Red blood cells --
they look like strawberry "Cherrios!"





Split end of a human hair





Neurons (Purkinje)
100 Billion of them -- they're
masters of coordination


------->Hair Cell of the Ear





Blood vessels emerging
from the optic nerve.





------->Tongue with a taste bud.






Tooth plaque -- a picture your Dentist
ought to show you.





Blood Clot -- white flower in the center is
a whole blood cell.









Normal Aveoli of the lung's inner surface.
and a picture of lung cancer cells >.






Villi of the small intestine
help absorption of food.




-------> Human Egg with Coronal Cells, sitting on a pin.







Sperm on surface of an egg





Human Embryo and Sperm 5 days after fertilization of egg ----------->.




Colored image of a 6 day old
human embryo implanting itself
onto the wall of the womb.




The colors, the vision -- Nature's art is breathtaking!