"If he could smile and play and feel then despite his disabilities he deserved to enjoy whatever life he had left, no matter how short."

"Just because his life would be shorter or different, didn’t mean he didn’t deserve to experience it. As long as he was pain free I vowed to let him enjoy his life both while inside me and outside, no matter how long that be."

"Flight attendants at Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific Airways are threatening to withhold food, alcohol and even smiles..."

"... from passengers during the Christmas holidays over a pay dispute, a union official said Thursday."

"I managed to get my head up and scream 'croc' and then this giant dragged me under again."

"I got my head above water again and this time I was swearing and saying get this thing off me. I was just screaming for help. I couldn't feel any pain but I could see his teeth sinking into my leg. I thought I was going to die. I could only see about four centimetres of the top of my leg and the rest was in the croc's gob."

Well, clearly she survived, since we have that quote, but how did she survive? (The saltwater crocodile was 3 meters long.) Her friend on the shore — Al Sartori — went in:

"I jumped into the water and on to its back and stuck my thumbs into its eyes until I felt it start to slacken off.... I picked up the croc and chucked it back into the water and it came back at me. It was pretty heavy."

Great heroism by Satori! A euonym? "Satori is considered a 'first step' or embarkation toward nirvana."

The student's mind must be prepared by rigorous study, with the use of koans, and the practice of meditation to concentrate the mind, under the guidance of a teacher.... Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai (無門慧開)... struggled for six years with koan "Zhaozhou’s dog"...

The koan is: "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?" Does a crocodile?

Wumen, having understood the koan wrote this poem:

A thunderclap under the clear blue sky
All beings on earth open their eyes;
Everything under heaven bows together;
Mount Sumeru leaps up and dances.

I know a poem about a crocodile:

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

"I am such an overprotective parent that if I knew my child might get bitten, I would not have even let my daughter do this."

"But I felt safe. Everyone just imagines dolphins as smiling, non-biting animals with knobby teeth. You forget these are wild animals."

Ugh. Human beings and their attitudes about dolphins. Everyone just imagines dolphins as smiling... No. Some people realize that's just the shape of their mouth. Meanwhile, a little 8-year-old girl is bitten because she impulsively does exactly what the kids are told not to do: moves the paper tray of fish. The dolphins are all just fine taking fish from kids, but when the paper tray is moved, a dolphin immediately jumps up to grab it, biting the child.

Whose fault is this?
	The dolphin's. He needs to learn to control his impulses.
	The child's. She was told not to move the paper tray, and then she did it!
	The parents'. They needed to figure out if their child was capable of following the rules.
	Sea World. It profits from this little show, which is an accident waiting to happen.
	The government, which should have shut down this damnable entertainment long ago.
	There's no fault here at all, just nature and the market taking their course.
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Did Obama have a strategy to make the debate feel wonky and dull?

He may have figured that if he were energized and feisty, there would be moments that might change the path of the election, and he's been on track for victory. Early on, it seemed that both men were cranking out their policy ideas, and if Obama had that strategy, he might have gotten complacent, thinking no one's really watching or nothing really matters anymore.

Later, perhaps, he got scared that Romney, with seemingly endless energy, was getting the better of him, embodying optimism. It's almost... Reaganesque! People are supposed to love me, that's the given of this race. What if they love him?!

Obama didn't have a way to change his own demeanor, to veer away from the game plan, mid-debate, and as he relied more and more on studied dullness, hints of his own disappointment in himself showed through. He tried, it seemed, to stave off those feelings by flashing his famously beautiful smile — which, we could then see, does not emanate from a place of joy or pleasure.

I'm reading Andrew Sullivan's his live-blog. His last entry is widely quoted:

But this was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look.

That corresponds to the theory that Obama had a strategy that turned out to be bad. And scroll down to 10:29:

How is Obama's closing statement so fucking sad, confused and lame? He choked. He lost. He may even have lost the election tonight.

The closing statement is a part Obama would have planned in advance. There's no reason for that to come off badly. Even if he'd been tired before and disappointed in himself and surprised at Romney's strength, the event was almost over. Summon up a final burst of energy and deliver that little speech you've got memorized. That is the thing you're best at — other than that smile — delivering a sermon. Nail that last little bit and maybe that's what people will remember. End big. Why wasn't he ready to do at least that?

Speculating, I'm able to come up with only 2 ideas: 1. He has some burdensome real emotions behind that smile, and 2. He actually doesn't want to win.

Urban Dictionary's Word of the Day: laugh.

"A smile having an orgasm."

Dude1: Oh dude look at that smile it's totally orgasming
Dude2: That's called a laugh...

One of the alternate jurors "has been spotted smiling at Edwards and flipping her hair..."

"... in what seems to some to be a flirtatious manner. On Friday, she wore a revealing red top with a single strap and an exposed right shoulder."

Sounds like the reporters waiting for the jury verdict don't have enough to do.

"Newt Gingrich... cloaked himself in churlishness and accessorized with self-pity."

My favorite phrase from Robin Givhan's fashion report on the Iowa Caucuses.

I like the literary device that characterizes emotion and facial expression as clothing. I wish I could think of a lot of examples, but what springs to mind is "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile."

There's also "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella." Somehow, I'm only thinking of old "smile" songs. Both of those examples put the singer in a position of advising somebody else to smile. Thanks a lot. It's not really too empathetic. You want a big, old phony smile on a man who's hurting? Hurting. Where is the song that acknowledges — maybe even celebrates — the display of churlishness and self-pity by presenting it as a fabulous cloak?

And can you picture such a cloak?

IN THE COMMENTS: MikeR quotes Psalms 109:18: "He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water, into his bones like oil."

AND: Here's the King James version:

As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment,
so let it come into his bowels like water,
and like oil into his bones.
Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him,
and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.

Have you perfected your "photo face"?

You need one, you know. What do you think... teeth/no teeth? Kissy-face jaw-lunge? Are you supposed to do something with your tongue behind your teeth like Elizabeth Hurley does to look consistently beautiful?

Do you want to look predictably decent but always the same in all your photographs? Or would you prefer spontaneous moods for different occasions... and all the risks that come with letting your feelings determine the appearance of your face?

"No, I wasn’t contacted or interviewed or given any opportunity to opine on any of it, including having my seven-year-old daughter’s picture in the paper."

"The primary story here is not that interesting... People lie and cheat and steal all the time. That’s a fact of life. But rarely does a national news organization give them an unverified megaphone to whitewash it."

Forbes interviews the husband of that woman who had her wedding story told in the New York Times. We talked about the NYT story yesterday, and (my husband) Meade, in the comments there, draws attention to the quotes that I'm using here.

[Bob Ennis, former husband of TV reporter Carol Anne Riddell], now head of the digital media practice at the investment bank Petsky Prunier, did not have a high opinion of the Times even before this incident. “I’m happy if they spell all the headlines on the front page correctly,” he says. “The idea that they’d fact-check a style story — I don’t think that’s incumbent on them. But there’s a difference between that and publishing a choreographed, self-serving piece of revisionist history for two people who are both members of the media industry.”

Oh! I love how this is turning into a Forbes vs. NYT journalism showdown — with the help of the jilted husband, who's got the help of Forbes now, getting his side of the marriage breakdown into the national press. 

Although his ex-wife said she and her new husband volunteered to tell their story to the “Vows” column partly “for our kids’ sakes,” Ennis says he is angry primarily because of the effect he sees this episode having on those same kids. 

Right. Don't forget the kids. Everyone is premising his/her self-serving statements on the kids now.

“These folks are well within their rights to tell whatever version of reality they want to tell, and if The New York Times is gullible enough to print it, that mostly reflects poorly on the Times,” he says. “The picture of my daughter is another matter. I sure as hell would have objected if they had told me they were going to print it.”

Which one is his daughter? Is it the sad-faced girl with the bow in her hair in profile at the right-hand side of the photograph? Look at her and think about how she might feel as she gazes at the brown wedding-cake about to be put asunder by the gleaming knife gripped by her outreaching mother whose hand is overclasped  by the (diamond?) ring-wearing paw of her new husband, the erst-while friend of her parents, whom she's long known as the dad of her kid-friends, who are now strangely intruded into the confusing, ever-changing zone that bears the label "family."

Or is his daughter the sweet little child in the husband's arms? Imagine how her father's heart aches to see that man with one hand grasping his daughter's rear and the other hand grasping his ex-wife's hand and, inside that, a knife. The new husband and wife are performing wedding theater for the NYT photographer, and they don't know that the frame the Times will select is the one where their smiles look like predatory grimaces and everyone else in the photograph looks like they belong at a funeral.

“Maybe The New York Times has forgotten, but New York can still be a dangerous town for children of wealthy people. I want to find out from the Times how that occurred and I will expect some sort of response and if I don’t get one I’ll take further measures to achieve one.”

Ugh, the stink of a threatened lawsuit drifts into the room. But don't worry: It's for the children.

***

And don't miss the extra photograph at the original NYT story. The woman's long-clawed hand drapes over the shoulder of her conquered beast, who seems drained of life force. His ring-wearing hand lies limply on the table next to a drained bottle of beer. In the original story, when he told her he loved her, she knocked a beer "into his lap" — that is, onto his genitals. The liquids have all spilled out, and the phallic symbols are empty.

Robert Downey Jr. is Mr. Peanut.

Great! I've always loved Robert Downey Jr. and Mr. Peanut:



But why is the nutcracker named "Richard"?

Background on Mr. Peanut:"Mr. Peanut was created in 1916 after Planters Peanuts held a contest to create a logo and a 14-year-old boy drew a nut with human features." I'd really like to see the original drawing. According to Wikipedia, the boy (Antonio Gentile) just drew a some sort of man-peanut — and "an artist later added spats, a top hat, a monocle, and a cane." So... did the boy's drawing have the gloves? The unfailingly optimistic smile?

On "Dancing With the Stars," they really try to get Bristol Palin to smile...

... but even with an ape mask over her head part of the time, we see far too much of the poor girl's sad face:



Even when the judges come up with some nice things to say about her dancing, she can't smile. Please, let the girl go home! If you can bear — or ape — to watch the whole clip, you'll hear her, toward the end, say "I hate the jive." She means, presumably, the dance they were doing, "the jive." But wouldn't it be awesome if she were awake enough to mean all this bullshit I've been put through since as long as I can remember?

"I want to acknowledge our first lady, Michelle Obama... She gets embarrassed."

Were you paying attention to the State of the Union when Obama focused on Michelle?

And by the way, I want to acknowledge our first lady, Michelle Obama, who this year is creating a national movement to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity and make kids healthier. Thank you. She gets embarrassed.

Let's put to the side the fact that Michelle Obama has chosen — as her signature issue — telling us our kids are fat. (I mean, thanks a lot. Laura Bush was all about telling kids to read. Why did Michelle go with "you're fat"?)

I was struck by the way, when Obama called on her, he had this almost frightened, serious look, as if he didn't know whether she'd play along with this public charade:



That's kind of a smile, but she looks annoyed...



When he got the smile from her, he smiled tightly and clapped... as if she'd performed a trick:



And what's with that other woman giving him the stinkeye?

"Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile."

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Via Glenn Reynolds, who admits he does the same thing.

People who pose for a lot of pictures — successfully — develop a natural-looking, reflexive smile. Don't mock it. It's very useful. I went through most of my life feeling awkward doing photographs as if it was phony to smile when it wasn't backed up by genuine happiness or amusement. You don't have time to summon up real feeling or its simulacrum. You're not filming an Oscar performance. Just do that winning, automatic smile for the camera and save your worries about real human feeling for less artificial encounters.

"Mr. Obama is teasing Mrs. Obama. 'You’re standing on the wrong side of me.'"

"She moves to his other side. He says, 'I’m just teasing.' She stares straight ahead with a smile."

Oh? What kind of smile?

"How come every time alpacas feel like the energy is low at work they have to do the worm from Labyrinth?"

Alpaca:



The worm from "Labyrith":



"Listen, Alapaca, obscure references to 80s cult movies are no excuse for your fuzzy hair, your bushy tail, your fucking face. And why are you always smiling? Are you purposefully trying to make me love you?... [S]top pretending you don't have legs and get back to work." — Link.

Was Hillary jetlagged? That's a hell of an excuse for the lady who purveyed the 3 a.m. ad!

The "Today Show" dialogue:

MEREDITH VIERA: This was definitely an uncharacteristic response by the Secretary of State, leading some to suggest that either she is jetlagged or jealous of her husband and the huge shadow that he casts, most notably last week in North Korea, where he negotiated the release of those two American journalists. What are insiders saying about this this morning?

ANDREA MITCHELL: Insiders would tell you probably a little of both. A lot of jetlag, clearly. By then she was at the half point in a twelve-day trip, seven countries. Very difficult travel. She had done twenty-two speeches and five interviews and she was exhausted—and and clearly, some would say, having a bad hair day. So not an easy day for Hillary Clinton.

Here's the old 3 a.m. ad, which was supposed to make us think Barack Obama would screw up when he was sleepy or something:



Obama seems tired/testy at times, but there's no video of him acting anywhere near as out of it as Hillary when she snapped in the Congo:



ADDED: Looking at the "Hillary snaps" clip one more time, I'm thinking if only she had smiled when she said that, it would have been if not just fine, kind of all right. She's teaching a feminist lesson — actually, an important one — and those things require a decent amount of lubrication.

The pirate smiles the fabulous smile of celebrity.

Enlarge.

Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, thinking I'm a big star in America now.

UPDATE: The pirate cries.

Smile.

For a longer-lasting marriage.

Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers that grow so incredibly high.

Oh, wow. Psychedelic:



I don't know if I like having kaleidoscope eyes. Maybe blank it all out with whiteness:



But don't look too long. Don't look too hard. Look out!



It's a vortex!