Again, over at Arts & Letters Daily, I found an interesting article about the women who founded those repugnant corporate marketeers of dissatisfaction, needless worry, and shame: The Czarinas of Beauty, an article by Stefan Kanfer about the founders of three of the world’s biggest cosmetics companies. Even in this time of Botox and collagen, implants and liposuction, the cosmetics industry still grossed some $60 billion last year and shows no signs of letting up. The siren appeal of a product off the shelves, a concoction that can diminish wrinkles, revive the skin, lighten the smile, and banish the years, …

Bush is going over the edge, say his aides. Not a surprise to the rest of the world, of course. Though now he’s doing spittle-flecked rants, calling anyone who disagrees with him unpatriotic, generally becoming a right old fascist. A vote for Bush really is a vote for more trouble than you want, Dear America.

You know the old saying, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”? It’s running through my head right now. The daughter of a coup-staging dictator? Involved in shady dealings? Unbelievable! Park Geun Hye is paid W11 million a month for her role as the head of the board of directors of the Jangsu Scholarship Foundation, which used to be the May 16 Scholarship Foundation. And yes, “May 16” refers to the May 16, 1961 coup d’etat instigated by her father. It was most likely created with funds extorted from a Busan businessman by her father’s dictatorship. Currently the foundation …

I wonder what Ritu would say about this one? IT’s a long feminist critique of the Gujarat massacres, in which the author attempts to understand why torture and mutilation of women, rather than the older-style abduction/rape/impregnation, was such a big part of what happened there. I don’t know enough about the situation to know what to think of Nussbaum’s ideas in this article, titled Body of the Nation, but I am curious to know what Ritu thinks of it. Though I do think that the Hindutva/Nazi thing is, well… hmm. I suspect every group of psycho fucks (Hindutva leaders, Nazi …