From the incomparable Dave Barry:

A while ago The New York Times printed an item concerning an 11-year-old girl who was overheard on the streets of East Hampton, N.Y., telling her father, "Daddy, Daddy, please don't sing!" The daddy was Billy Joel. The irony, of course, is that a lot of people would pay BIG money to hear Billy Joel sing. But of course these people are not Billy Joel's adolescent offspring....

Yes, parents: In the ongoing battle between you and your adolescent children, you possess the ultimate weapon -- The Power To Embarrass. Use this power, parents! If your adolescent children are in ANY way displeasing you -- if they are mouthing off or engaging in unacceptable behavior -- do not waste your breath nagging them. Instead, simply do what Billy Joel and I do: Sing.

I noted last week that the international observers' report on the US elections has mysteriously not yet been published. The Secretariat in Warsaw have just informed me that "The report has been delayed somewhat, due to a high number of election observations during the last few months. I expect the report to be out soon." I'm inclined to take that at face value - sounds very like my own work pressures. Will keep y'all posted as to when it appears.

Got this from a draft speech from a former negotiator in a particular unresolved conflict:

One other blind alley I would advise against heading up, is the idea of negotiating confidence-building measures. Whenever there has been a pause or a setback in the negotiations for a comprehensive settlement, someone comes forward with the idea of negotiating confidence building measures; and they never lead anywhere except to a major diversion of negotiating energy and more friction. The reason is clear. One or the other, or sometimes both, sides believe that the other side is going to get some unrequited benefit out of the measures proposed or that some sensitive aspect of a comprehensive settlement is going to be prejudiced. Far the most successful and beneficial confidence building measure in recent times, [specified], took place without any negotiation at all. Indeed one could wager that, if there had been any attempt made to negotiate [it], it would never have taken place at all. Let us by all means have plenty more of that sort of confidence building but not a return to the failed remedies of the past, which in any case presume a continuation of the status quo rather than an end to it.

A very interesting point - that confidence-building measures are pretty useless as a substitute for real conflict resolution, and can only work in the context of a shared understanding of where the process will end up. In other words, once you've sorted out the easy bits, and are left with small difficult bits and large difficult bits, much better to tackle the large difficult bits as that will inevitably also involve sorting the smaller ones.

Failed to buy the Guardian last Saturday, so missed this from Jessa Crispin. But since I read bookslut, I found it eventually.