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A Bazillin Lira

Wednesday, March 5, 2003

• TITLE: "A Bazillion Lira" I guess it would really be 48 thousand trillion lira.

• "... Subscription Drive ..." If you missed the e-mail about the subscription drive, you should go here to read it.

• "... Gutrah ..." From the Leb.net site:

  "Some men wear 'Dishdashah' or 'Thoub', a long sleeved one piece dress that covers the whole body. Then, there's a 3-piece head cover: 'Thagiyah', (bottom piece) a white cap that is sometimes filled with holes; 'Gutrah', (top) a scarf-like white head cover which is worn in summer, and 'Shumag', a heavy red and white checked head cover worn during winter; and on top of the set is the 'Ogal', which is a black band surrounding the top of the head, and holds everything in place.

  The item in the man's right hand is known as a "cell phone."

• "... Exchange Rates ..." Here's the thing about exchange rates for most of us:

  Unless you are overseas buying heavy construction equipment the normal changes in exchange rates between the Pound and the Dollar or the Euro and the Dollar are so relatively small over the course of a week that it is ridiculous to aggravate about it.

  Some years ago I was in Bangkok, Thailand to do some training for the International Republican Institute. A woman from New York was with me to help out. The currency of Thailand, the baht, had just collapsed and the exchange rate could go up or down 15% over the course of a day.

  This woman went out, one morning, to buy tchotchkes for the home-folk. In the afternoon she realized that the exchange rate between the baht and the dollar had changed by ten percent in favor of the dollar. She Went into full whine about how she should have waited, up with which I put for about 17 seconds before I asked her about how much she had spent.

  She said she had bought about $80 US in local crafts to take home as gifts. I said that if she would have waited she would have saved a total of $8, which was about the price of one drink in the five star hotel at which we were having dinner.

  I offered to buy her a Mai-Thai to soothe her jangled nerves and her jingled pocketbook. She accepted the drink, but didn't get the pun.

• "... chanceux nous ..." French for "Lucky us."

• "... nez ..." French for "nose." Except in Neverland where a nose is called "the hole in the middle of Michael Jackson's face."

• "... Kepi ..." Here's a real Gendarme wearing his kepi:
  
  
  And here's Claude Raines showing how to wear it with style:
  
  
           World War I Poster
  

•     Mullings' Catchy Caption of the Day:
  

  
  Actual Caption: German pop singer Juliette performs during a TV show rehearsal March 1, 2003 in Cologne. The 22-year-old singer told a German paper that she had breast implants paid for by health insurance, sparking a debate about what is wrong with Germany's generous health care insurance system.

  Um. What do you supposed the "before" picture looked like? The German people should get their money back.

  (Photo: Reuters)) ____________________________________________________________________________________