Anderson said he was punched 10 times in the head as pro-Mubarak mob surrounded him and his crew trying to cover demonstrationless than a minute ago via Mobile Web

Steve Brusk
stevebruskCNN

Now we’re at the terrible part of the protests in Egypt, when the government brings out the thugs, and some actual chaos does occur. (And not just Anderson Cooper getting beat in the head.) There’s BBC live feed here. The country so far has been really remarkably peaceful, for a place engulfed in mass demonstrations! But now? Our guy in Egypt has now left the country after, he wrote to us, being shot by a rubber bullet. We also talked yesterday with a student who left the country on the 29th — he has written this account of being in Cairo, and, to be honest, it was not an account to which I was entirely sympathetic at first! It’s very easy to feel “unsafe” in a land where you don’t know anyone and don’t speak the language. To be fair to him, his concerns about safety for people without a network there, it sounds like today, been proven largely right. Now that Mubarak and his allies have decided to escalate the situation by use of violence, we’ll see a strengthening of the protest movement but also a lot of unnecessary casualties. Which is remarkable, and remarkably stupid: don’t you think Mubarak sees how this ends?

“I just don’t understand physiologically how putting steam up the vagina is going to change your fertility or help you relieve stress. There’s plenty of data that supports mind-body intervention and how that improves fertility and decreases stress. But steam itself in the vagina doesn’t make any sense for me. It’s not like it’s going to blow up some closed tube.”
 — Dr. Laura Riley, director of labor and delivery at Massachusetts General in Boston, doubts the efficacy of chai-yok, a traditional Korean treatment in which naked women squat above a pot of herb-infused boiling water. Adds Riley, “Someone who believes it’s going to work might get some benefit. But I’d be more concerned about burning my vagina. That’s a very sensitive area.”

Just put on headphones and hit play on both videos. It will help you pay attention long enough to understand what Real America thinks about what’s going on in Egypt and the region. (Hint: It’s the rise of a Muslim Caliphate!) We don’t know who first put this together — someone emailed it in last night — but it’s pretty great.

Joyous news! A Winter’s Tale, my all-time favorite novel, one that I reread every five years, is going to be made into a movie! This complex story of over 700 pages, with its multiple narratives and mix of magical realism and urban fiction, will surely translate into a highly entertaining and easily digestible feature film while remaining loyal to the source material. I mean, it’s going to be directed by the guy who wrote A Beautiful Mind! What could go wrong? I’m not FILLED WITH APPREHENSION at all!

Really quite terrible Redskins sports team owner Dan Snyder claims he is preparing to sue Washington City Paper over a particularly marvelous profile. But apparently they might also sue the Washington Post, for linking to it? “Snyder’s attorneys contacted The Post last week and asked the newspaper to preserve e-mails between Post sports blogger Dan Steinberg and [Dave] McKenna,” who wrote the City Paper piece. “The attorneys said they intend to explore whether there was any agreement between McKenna and Steinberg to cross-promote McKenna’s pieces on Snyder.” Dear lawyer friends: can you make some sense of that for us? We assume that is just setting up the Post as a potential target for a suit claiming… a concerted campaign to damage Snyder’s reputation? But the profile on him is entirely composed of truthfulness — though the lawyers claim otherwise. That Snyder’s people have not ever contacted anyone at City Paper for corrections (or for anything else), and instead are using threats of litigation over unknown errors as their first remedy — doesn’t that wildly undermine their case? Also: doesn’t calling a reporter a liar, uh, damage his reputation as well?

This morning I finally knew what it will feel like to be an old man, should I last that long. As I doddered down the ice-strewn streets, each step more cautious than the one before, I once again wondered how the elderly manage to make it in this town. Forget the loneliness and the way society tends to overlook those who are no longer in their demographic prime — not that I am in any way minimizing that suffering — but how the hell do those poor people get around? Because even as a relatively able-bodied adult it was almost impossible to navigate our slick sidewalks, to say nothing of the deceptively deep lakes that are now in place at every corner. (If your socks are somehow dry this morning, you have a better set of boots than I do. Or you live in an area with proper drainage.) Anyway, as always, be careful out there. I’m going to spend the next couple of hours researching a mythical season called spring. I know it’s very unlikely that we will ever get to experience it, but still, isn’t it pretty to think so.

Photo by Charles Smith, from Flickr.

As the biggest storm since the early 1790s (estimated) arrives to destroy America (because of our freedom), amazing things are happening all over the country. Ice, for instance, is rising up to overthrow the totalitarian regime that is people. And so all over America, people are falling down. Lots of them. And there are cameras nearby — including creepy dads with security cameras all around their houses?

Also you can push cars.

“OLDHAM: I love that song ‘The World’s Greatest’ as well. We perform that song onstage sometimes. We do sort of like a country version of it.

KELLY: Yeah? I would love to hear that. You know, I took the Queen Mary to Europe once because I didn’t want to get on a plane . . .

OLDHAM: Because planes make you nervous?”
 — Have you read Will “Bonnie Prince Billy” Oldham interviewing R. Kelly in the new Interview magazine yet? If not, definitely do. It is an amazing and wonderful conversation about music and theater and boats and Africa and people and love and pain and talent and celebrity and loneliness and finding oneself and fear of flying.

Here are some tips on that, by the way.

And here’s R. Kelly’s original version of the “The World’s Greatest.”

If you have not yet seen the sad tale of two weasels you can click on that link, but be warned: It is a sad tale of two weasels. It will not make you feel good about people.

We are one step closer to an invisibility cloak, says Science!

In the past researchers have only been able to “cloak” microscopic objects using extremely complicated physics and so-called meta-materials made on a tiny scale. But a new study at the University of Birmingham has taken a massive step forward by making a paper clip invisible — an object thousands of times bigger than previous experiments. The research works by using a naturally forming crystal called calcite which has extraordinary light bending abilities. By placing the crystals over an object it “bounces” light around it rendering it totally invisible to the naked eye.

Obviously, this is still an emerging technology, but I hope they hurry up and get the whole thing together soon. Because I have some plans for an invisibility cloak. Here’s what I would do if I were completely invisible.

• See movie stars naked.

• See supermodels naked.

• See average people naked, just so I don’t forget how amazing it is to see movie stars and supermodels naked.

• Stay in bars after closing time and avail myself of their stock for free, in silence, enjoying
the alone time with my good friend alcohol.

• Knock the toupees of off loathsome public figures at highly embarrassing moments.

• Redistribute wealth. (I guess I will need an invisible briefcase for this part, but Science can make it happen.)

• Go to the Met and lick famous works of art, just because I can.

• Revive the classic “hot foot” prank, but with even more surprising results.

• Go sit by the river and think about all the sadness in the world and weep into the water.

• Head back to another bar and repeat step four.

• Miscellaneous frotteurism.

What would you do with an invisibility cloak? Tell us in the comments!