Things We Learned from Twitter- Arianna's Take on Rupert Murdoch

With only 14 characters to spare, it may seem hard to take a good shot at a political nemesis, but that is what the liberal Arianna Huffington, founder of "The Huffington Post" did on Twitter earlier tonight.

In her tweet, Huffington said the following: Now trending on Twitter: names of Harry Potter villains and NOTW villains.

NOTW stands for "News of the World;" it is the now-infamous Rupert Murdoch newspaper in England which completely closed down due to a major phone-hacking scandal. The breech of public trust is being felt here in the United States as well as Les Hinton, who was the managing editor of "The Wall Street Journal" until this morning abruptly resigned. Hinton had previously overseen the NOTW.

SIDEBAR: It seems to be a problem with all Mediterranean countries (I prefer the Turkish term Ak Deniz, which means White Sea, which is much easier to spell than Mediterranean), irregardless if the country is westernized and an EU member, like Italy or Greece, or a Muslim country like Turkey, my late father's homeland, Tunisia or Egypt, or even Israel.

All of these countries seem to be male-dominated countries which greatly emphasize machismoism. One might be inclined to think France, the country of sophisticated intellectualism and a high regard for the arts, might be a noteable exception.

But, in an interview with the NPR show "The World" today, Elaine Sciolino, a Paris correspondent for "The New York Times," said that is not the case at all.

Sciolino, who was just written a book called "La Seduction," said that sexual harrassment is a major problem in France. And, she faults the country's tradition of chivalry, which could well date back to the days of Rene Descartes (a French philosopher who lived in the early 17th century) as part of the problem. Sciolino said men think prefusely flirting is always ok, and women are not sure how to stand up and say 'noi means noi,' well that wasn't exactly the way she put it!

A Facebook Group I Won't Be Joining

One of the most fascinating things about being a devout Twitter person is that you find out things you might not be aware of. For instance, last night I saw that uber-obnoxious film director James Cameron would be on "The Tavis Smiley Show." I follow Smiley on Twitter, and I was eager to see his interview with a man whose ego seems to be as large as the budgets of his films, but amazingly enough I was on the phone with a friend when the show aired in North Carolina at 12:30 a.m.

But, I also saw this bit about Tiger Woods on Twitter yesterday.

According to everyone's favorite 'neocon in reverse' Arianna Huffington the Facebook group "I Have Also Slept With Tiger Woods" had 171,000 members yesterday up from 139,000 members on Wednesday.

I looked and there is indeed such a group on Facebook. Today the group has 200,211 members as of 5:00 p.m. (east coast time!).

I also saw that Matthew DeBard, a contributor to the liberal-leaning Huffington Post blog (which is certainly better than The Drudge Report on the other side), has a column entitled "Tiger Woods Is So, So, So Much Bigger Than Golf."

The fact that The Huffington Post also includes articles from my fellow Turkish-American progressive Cenk Uygur (who has a liberal talk radio program) might lead one to think I look at the site daily, but there are so many places to go on the web, including Facebook, Twitter and this freaking blog! All of which reminds me that it's been three long weeks since I looked at my E-Harmony account!

WINTER STORM WARNING: For those reading this in Virginia, Maryland or North Carolina, you may have already noticed a lot of snow outside your window. Flights out of Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC, have been canceled as has a Christmas party for the Augusta County Eagles in Staunton, Va.

Similarly, Studio Roanoke in Roanoke, Va., has scrapped No Shame Theatre tonight. And, lastly there will no college night at the Lucky City bookstore in Reidsville, NC.

I guess we'll all have to stay home and watch tv movies on Lifetime tonight.

Yet Another Quote of the Week?!- Joe Strummer

The liberal blogger Arianna Huffington maintains that bloggers are ones who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She may have a point as this is the fourth quote I've used this week?!

Today, we go with Joe Strummer, who was the subject of our last "Dead or Alive" entry. Alas, the frontman for the punk band The Clash is no longer with us as Strummer died on Dec. 22, 2002.

But, there are apparently efforts to recognize Dec. 22 of this year as "International Joe Strummer Day," which happens to be my mother's 70th birthday.

I'm not sure if she is familiar with The Clash, which "Rolling Stone" called the 30th best music artist of all time, but perhaps we can play "London Calling" at her birthday party though I'm not sure her friends from church would approve!

Here is the quip we selected from Strummer, who was also a great actor who appeared in the 1989 Jim Jarmusch film "Mystery Train," which was filmed in Memphis, Tenn.:

"What I like most about playing America is you be sure you're not going to get hit with a full can of beer when you're singing and I really enjoy that."