Make me ugly!

What a strange story from the China Daily - a Chongqing woman is asking plastic surgeons to make her ugly.

A young woman from Chongqing sought plastic surgery to make her face less attractive recently, after being crossed in love. The 23-year-old woman's sweetheart left her weeks ago to stay with another woman. Although the two had been in love for six years, her ex-boyfriend feared that her too-beautiful face might lure many other men and thus he didn't feel safe staying with her. She came to hate all men after being courted by many others, prompting her desire for the surgery. But the doctors refused to co-operate, saying she had a mental disorder and needed to seek help from psychotherapists.

North Korea Nukes & TV

On October 9th, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported the country had performed a successful underground nuclear test.

MAD TV has a parody of Kim Jong-Il with his own TV show. On his show, he shows guest Donald Trump his version of the Apprentice:

Matzah!

As an evangelical Christian from the South, moving to Brooklyn has given me another opportunity to better understand another religious group. I live in a predominantly orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn and encounter Jews everyday here. I have no problems with that, as they are friendly. I've encountered different religious groups everywhere I've previously lived - evangelical Protestants in Kentucky (my home state), Catholics in the Midwest, atheists in Silicon Valley, & Buddhists in China. But I don't think I've ever been so shocked before. Not that Jews here do anything shocking -- I'm shocked that I was so uneducated and unaware of their customs. We recently celebrated Yom Kippur here. That's not a big holiday in Kentucky or China, but, in my neighborhood, everything was shut down. When I walked outside to take the subway to class it was like living in a ghost town. The grocery store, the convenience store -- almost all businesses were closed. In Manhattan, the place I usually buy my dinner was open but had no food for sale. Anyway, this week, I searched the Internet and came across the following funny Matzah rap song.



No, I haven't seen anyone rapping in the neighborhood - but I can appreciate and understand some of the things in the song more now after living here. Just so you know, Matzah is unleavened bread eaten during Passover.

The Onion

I knew that The Onion is an online satirical newspaper that leans a little bit to the left politically. What I didn't know is that there are newspaper stands all over New York City distributing the paper for free. The current paper has a headline poking fun at President Bush. I generally find the paper funny, even if I don't always agree with the political points it makes.