Your Czarness:

Might I offer a random observation concerning your first points in yesterday’s “News Roundup”?

Now you might be sitting in your frozen castle up in Muscovy wondering what in tarnation Sarah Palin and Mohammed El-Baradei could possibly have in common. If I follow your argument of a template-driven media, then I submit that they represent mirror images of “the” media’s self-serving nature.

Much has been written about the unhinged hatred Sarah Palin engenders in feminists (whatever they are), the political left and the intelligentsia (whoever they are). It really chafes their hides that she (1) has that passel of young ‘uns, (2) shoots things then cooks and eats ’em, and all-the-while (3) seems to be a pretty cheerful person. But it seems to me that the media, doubtless with a fair population of lefty-feministy-intelligentsies, has yet another thing against Palin. They didn’t know who she was. And they know everyone worth knowing, don’t you know? Until McCain picked her, not a single journalist outside of the Wasilla Daily Shoppers’ Guide and Recipe Swapper could have picked her out of a police lineup. She didn’t go to any big-time Eastern school, nor was she a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. So how could she be important? She must be stupid, then. And dangerous, as Your Czarness points out.

El-Baradei might be benefitting from very same thought process that damns Palin. Important people know him. He has a Nobel. He lives in Vienna, which is a very sophisticated city. Even your “important” journalists can’t be expected to know a whole bunch of people in Egypt, now can they? So let us annoint the guy whose name we know. Remember he has a Nobel. Furthermore, he made no bones for his dislike of Georgre W. Bush whilst sticking up for the Iranian regime. Hates Bush/bashes US of A: what’s not to love?

Yours from the Doublewide, JAB

PS: Keep warm up there in the frozen wastelands of Muscovy!

The Czar has not heard from JAB in a while. Glad you are well and writing!

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.