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"Could it happen here?" That's what I heard several times on local radio today. They were referring, of course, to the earthquake and tidal wave in the Indian Ocean.

"Could it happen here?" Er, yes, but...

"Could it happen here?" Probably not. You see, some areas are more susceptible to earthquakes of that magintude, and there's no such fault in close enough proximity to the Southern California coast that would...

"But could it happen here?" Well, unlike those countries, we have warning systems that would allow for several hours to evacuate the beaches and low-lying areas, so there wouldn't likely be...

"Yes, but could it happen here?"

What do you want them to say?!? Yes, it could. It almost certainly won't, not like it did there, and there wouldn't be the same type of casualty count, but anything's possible. There! Are you happy now?!?

The capacity of the news media to say stupid things is always astounding. And then they get upset when Captain Janks or someone pranks them during their breathless disaster coverage (apparently, Janks or a Janks-alike pranked Fox News this time).

This tragedy is bringing out the idiot in a lot of people. The U.N.'s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief (now, there's a title) Jan Egeland chose this moment to use a terrible tragedy to attack America again:

In a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York, Egeland called for a major international response -- and went so far as to call the U.S. government and others "stingy" on foreign aid in general.

"If, actually, the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of the gross national income, I think that is stingy, really," he said. "I don't think that is very generous."

The U.S. government expects to spend $15 million in its initial response to the disaster, the State Department said Monday.

The U.S. isn't obligated by any law or rule to spend a dime on other countries- that we do at all is hardly "stingy." The nation recognizes its place in the world and the need to contribute. Yet what Egeland wants is more, much more, because a) it would come out of our pockets (he's referring to us with that 0.1-0.2% number- it's 0.2%, actually) and b) he'd get to see some of it. Yes, the money would flow through the U.N., which, naturally, would "make sure" the cash "gets to" the "affected areas." Sure it would. And then there's the fact that some of the affected countries are not exactly impoverished- luxury resorts were taken out by this one- yet they chose not to install early warning systems for ocean earthquakes, tsunamis, and tidal waves despite knowing their region is susceptible to such disasters. Where's the U.N. in criticizing those nations for failing to put any money at all into protecting their citizens from this disaster?

Oh, right, those countries aren't America. Never mind. (Egeland says he didn't know they hadn't bothered to put a system in, but, you know, such a system would be a "massive undertaking" and you really can't expect blah blah blah. Nobody's fault, that was. Not like the egregious stinginess of you-know-who)

The tidal waves, the deaths, the destruction are, collectively, a tragedy. America should and will help, officially and privately. I just wish the U.N. didn't have to be involved, because in its hands, everything becomes political, and natural disasters end up being America's fault.

Ignore them. Here, via Daniel Drezner (via Instapundit), is a list of organizations taking donations to help the victims. Do it for the children, do it for humanity, hell, do it for the tax deduction if that'll make a difference to you. But if you have a few bucks to spare, now would be a good time to show hoiw generous Americans, and everyone else, can be.

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Jan Egeland's backpedaling furiously from his comments yesterday- now it's all just misinterpretation:

Egeland told reporters on Tuesday: "I've been misinterpreted when I yesterday said that I believed that rich countries in general can be more generous."

Let's recall what he said just the day before:

If actually the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of their gross national income, I think that is stingy really. I don't think that is very generous," he said.

Misinterpret that.

I prefer people who come out and admit they were wrong instead of using weasel words like "misinterpretation," especially when there was no misinterpretation involved. He said it, he meant it, he got a bad reaction, he backpedalled. Not that you can expect anything different from a U.N. official, but it WOULD be refreshing if the guy either stuck to his guns or admitted he blew it.

Meanwhile, the video trickling out of the affected areas is overwhelming and heartbreaking- it just gets worse, a sadly fitting end to a really crappy year. Again, if you're able, this would be a great time to give, give, give.

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People have nightmares in which they dream their teeth are falling out of their heads. Then they wake up.

I have those nightmares, too. Unfortunately, I'm not dreaming at the time.

Earlier this year, you might recall that I spent several greuling sessions at the dentist having various and sundry teeth repaired. Throughout the ordeal, I told myself, well, when this is over, that'll be it for a while- at least it'll end at some point.

Turns out that "some point" hasn't arrived yet. Last week, I was chewing some candy and noticed that it was crunchy- but it wasn't supposed to be a crunchy candy. A molar had partially disintegrated, and I went to the dentist, who checked it and scheduled an appointment for next week. OK, fine, bad luck again, but I can deal with it.

Last night, I was flossing when I noticed a particularly big item between my molars on the other side of my mouth. The particularly big item was, in fact, a piece of another tooth. Yes, I have another disintegrating tooth.

The molar... er, the moral of this story? Let's see... I DO floss and brush, so "practice dental hygiene" isn't it. How about "don't eat candy"? No, the second one fell apart by itself. Ah, here's the moral...

2004 sucks.

I'm going to go drink dinner now.

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I was going to get all pundit-like over the Bush-didn't-send-condolences-fast-enough thing, pointing out that it's the typical left-wing words-mean-more-than-deeds scenario and all that, but by now that's been talked to death, and in the intervening hours I ended up at the Einstein exhibit at the Skirball Center, the Jewish cultural museum and all-purpose center here in L.A. We had the Sirius 60's channel on all the way up the 405, and we sang along:

I bought a silver Mercedes and we call it our baby
Skirball Center, here we come
You know, it's made by the Nazis but we're over that, maybe
Skirball Center, here we come
It has electric seat warmers and power windows
And it sure gets us where we wanna go

And we're goin' to Skirball Center, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Skirball Center, gonna have some fun
Yeah, we're goin' to Skirball Center, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Skirball Center, gonna have some fun, now

Two Jews for every goy!

(That was the basic makeup of the crowd there, too- two to one. Since we're Jewish, there had to be some Christian guy wandering around to maintain the ratio. I couldn't find him, though.)

And we ended up spending several hours waiting to get into the exhibit, some of that in the Permanent Collection where they have a Popular Culture section that celebrates Jews in American society- Richard Benjamin! Billy Crystal!- and some of it waiting around in queues. Around 4:00, we finally got ushered in to see the exhibit, and the first half of it, one sort of corridor's worth, after rushing through his early years (born, school, child out of wedlock, marriage, another kid, cheating on his wife, divorce, married his cousin, won Nobel Prize), laid out his theories, which involved e equaling m times the square of c and light moving at a constant speed and gravity not being a force but more like a warp in the space-time thingamajig and they had all sorts of explanations and science fair projects to demonstrate it, and it was cool if you want to be plunged into a Physics 101 course on your day off. I don't, but it was still kinda interesting in an I-didn't-need-to-know-this-but-thanks-anyway way, and then we rounded the bend to the other corridor, where they dealt with Einstein's life.

Einstein, they noted, was a committed socialist and anti-militarist. Oh, there was nothing he hated more than the military, you see, and he hated it so much that he renounced his German citizenship around World War I and became a Swiss citizen, then got himself exempted from military service because of sweaty feet and paid a tax for his exemption instead.

War! Huh! Ja!
Was is das gut für?
Absolut nichts!
Sagen Sie es wieder!

And that was his absolute, unshakeable belief until it dawned on him that without military action, the Nazis were likely to, well, you know, which was his cue to urge President Roosevelt to go all militaristic and maybe even build a nuclear weapon. And that's what happened, except that when the Americans actually USED the thing, and subsequently won the war and preserved freedom, Einstein instantly reverted to his pacifist ways, apologizing all over the place even though he wasn't really directly responsible for the bomb- they didn't even give him security clearance to speak to the Manhattan Project scientists- and demanding that a world government be instituted to which all heads of state would be answerable. He wanted the world to be all one happy smiling place run by a single overarching government.

Politically, however, Einstein was an amateur. He was naive to the extreme in some cases- a socialist yearning for a world government that would have overruled, and most likely crushed, the state of Israel in support of which he'd worked hard. He could be right- Israel, opposition to the McCarthy witchhunts, working to help Jews displaced by Hitler- but was often just idealistic to a fault, believing in total worldwide nuclear disarmament as if every nation could be trusted to just hand over its weapons, believing in pacifism except when it became clear that someone hadda fight the Nazis, then flip-flopping back to pacifism. Most importantly, however, he told the world about this simply because he'd become, to his consternation, a celebrity from his physics work, and he felt that he should use that fame to impart his wisdom on things other than that which earned him his fame.

In other words, he was the first Celebrity Political Blowhard.

Today's actor and musician politicos, the Sean Penns and Bruce Springsteens and Mel Gibsons and Green Days, are directly descended from the political Einstein. That's not the same thing as being a direct descendant of the physics Einstein. Einstein was an early example of a guy who'd achieved the pinnacle in one field- an admittedly amazing field, and surely worthy of celebration to the greatest extent- thinking that it made him similarly a genius in other fields. He earned the title of Genius and World's Smartest Man by his scientific work. That didn't make him a political or social genius as well.

The exhibit, of course, didn't analyze things this deeply. It just showed how he was a pacifist and against war and against capitalism (he called it chaos) and it vaguely approved all of his sentiments, because, after all, he was a genius. He did e=mc², so he must have known everything else. Bruce Springsteen did "Born to Run," so he must know everything. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is really funny and creative, so Larry David's wife must be an expert on the environment. It's logic! Political intelligence equals a single unrelated achievement times celebrity squared! The Theory of Celebritivity!

You know, I think this exhibit WAS educational after all.

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Those of you tired of my incessant hammering on the L.A. Times can check out the master of such criticism, Patterico, and read HIS incessant hammering on the Paper of Recoil in a handy condensed Year in Review form. Part one? Here. Part two? Here. Both highly recommended, especially if your name is John Carroll.

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It's fitting that on the final day of a year like this, it's pouring rain in normally rain-free Southern California. That's what it looked like a few minutes ago when I stepped outside- it's been raining steadily for a few hours, on the heels of a mostly rainy week.

I would do a year in review if I wanted to relive any of it, but for reasons that would be readily apparent to regular readers, I don't. So let's finish the year with this: I wish you all a better 2005. That shouldn't be difficult to achieve, not for me, at least. The bar's been set low.

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And so we made it, albeit scathed, and we awoke to the sun shining and the birds singing and the cat meowing and 2005 beginning in fine style. I don't want to ruin the good will and positive feelings, not right away, at least, but I was flipping through the channels and saw something that reminded me of this:

Someone really needs to do something about the Mummers Parade.

I lived in the Delaware Valley for years and never once felt the need to head to Center City to see the Mummers. There's a reason for this- it's kinda stupid. For the uninitiated, this is what a Mummer looks like:

(2002: Fralinger String Band struts to a second place finish in their division with "A Festival of Knights." Photo courtesy of GPTMC)

What you get with the Mummers is basically a bunch of South Philly guys strutting in sequins and feathers and playing banjos. (And, traditionally, drinking and peeing and puking all along the parade route, but they've tried to cut back on that stuff) The parade isn't as popular as it used to be, but it persists, and it was on TV, so I watched a few minutes with the kind of feeling you get from seeing the aftermath of a non-injury car crash- what a shame, glad nobody got hurt, get me outa here.

Really, though, what do the big parades tell you about their cities? Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: "This is a big, bustling city with lots of people and Broadway shows and NBC personalities. Oh, and it's now Christmas season, so come here and shop." Rose Parade: "It's warmer and sunnier here than where you are. And Bob Eubanks is still alive." Mummers Parade: "You really don't want to come here."

Philly's better than that. Time to retire the Mummers.

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