Skip ahead to the 7:30 mark of this video to see the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland deny that he has ever hit, shoved, or thrown anything at a member of his staff. The questions come after revelations in an excerpt from a new book about the Labour party in government which includes allegations of lapel grabbing, secretary dragging, upholstery damaging, and always always The Swearing. Whether Gordon Brown’s volcanic temper did, in fact, result in this kind of abusive behavior-and the chief executive of Britain’s National Bullying Helpline subsequently asserted that, “I have personally taken a call from staff in the Prime Minister’s office, staff who believe they are working in a bullying culture and that it has caused them some stress,”-the Prime Minister’s suggestion that the country wants someone who will “push things forward” might not have been the most politic choice of words.

In case you missed the obituary for former Secretary of State Alexander Haig this weekend, here are the rather remarkable second and third paragraphs.

Mr. Haig was a rare American breed: a political general. His bids for the presidency quickly came undone. But his ambition to be president was thinly veiled, and that was his undoing. He knew, Reagan’s aide Lyn Nofziger once said, that “the third paragraph of his obit” would detail his conduct in the hours after President Reagan was shot, on March 30, 1981.

That day, Secretary of State Haig wrongly declared himself the acting president. “The helm is right here,” he told members of the Reagan cabinet in the White House Situation Room, “and that means right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the vice president gets here.” His words were taped by Richard V. Allen, then the national security adviser.

Kinda funny, kinda meta, definitely appreciated. And just in case this isn’t a one-shot deal, I’m gonna take a chance and say that I know the third paragraph of my obituary will detail the grandeur of my cock. File that away in your notebooks, necrology scribblers!

by Katie Baker

“These Olympics have just been a complete disaster,” said a coworker the other day with the sort of learned gravitas that can only be acquired via a force-fed nightly diet of Chris Collinsworth’s zip-up-necked sweaters (stitched, per the suddenly saucy Wall Street Journal, “entirely out of Phil Simms’s hair.”)

Typically I am adept at tuning out the various pontification that goes on around me during the day-Lord knows I can find more than my fill of ill-informed “takes” on “issues” right here online, with the added bonus that on the Internet, nobody knows you’re rolling your eyes-but in this case, for whatever reason, I couldn’t help but react.

“I totally disagree,” I sputtered. “These Olympics have been great.”

There was silence; a minor faceoff. At this point we were both standing because we sit directly across from one another and can’t see over our computer screens otherwise.

“They had that massive mechanical failure at the Opening Ceremonies?” he reminded me and everyone else sneaking glances in our direction. “They don’t have any snow. And uh, a guy died.”

That. Yes. Whoops. I’d been talking more so about, like, the ratings.

Which have surprised me, particularly given the howls of anger reverberating throughout the land regarding NBC’s mine mine mine all mine gimme mine Olympic coverage. (Would you ever have guessed that Deadspin has readers who write in, passionately, proclaiming that “I too am extremely upset with the coverage by NBC. When they completely didn’t show any speed skating last night in prime time I was furious at them”?)

These cries have been matched in their wounded stridency only by those of people who expect such local niche websites as the New York Times to tailor their own coverage in such a way that ensures that no results will be reported until everyone in every time zone everywhere has had a chance to get home from work, pour a glass of wine, and pause 20 minutes so they can fast forward their DVR through the commercials.

“This is not Taliban news, nor TARP news, or even Paula Jones type news,” scolded Matt Gooch of Harrisonburg, Va. Ken Waters of Phoenix, meanwhile, was faced with his own personal Sophie’s choice. “Per usual, I have to basically go on a two week sans NY Times ‘vacation’, and go temporarily dumb, doing so,” he explained. “That’s a lose/lose.” Is it now?

Still, I get it. Some of the sportswriters that I follow on Twitter have, in their quest to be FIRST!, taken to writing things like “SPOILER ALERT: Lindsey Vonn has won the gold.” Which… by the time my eyes have seen and processed the first two words, they’ve probably also gone ahead and seen and processed the entire rest of the sentence, you know?

The good news is that now I can BE one of those Twitterers, because recently I was tipped off to a live feed existing in a cobwebbed corner of the Internet. It was a shadowy transaction during which I was sworn to utter secrecy, and I’m pretty sure that I’m now either on some RCMP watchlist or have joined the Illuminati, or probably both. One sports blogger to whom I recounted my strange experience responded thusly: “Whenever I enter the feed-pirate demimonde, I feel like I’m walking into Rick’s Café, only with less Ingrid Bergman.”

But now I can watch the biathalon live from the comfort of my office chair and at great risk to my ongoing employment! In contrast to Ken Waters’ point above, that is a win-fucking-win. Meanwhile, I just tried to check out Shaun White’s gold medal winning halfpipe run from the other night on the official sanctioned NBC website and spent like three minutes wrestling with stern pop-up messages and plugins that I don’t have the IT permissions to install on my drive.
I gave up. It’ll probably be on YouTube in a few months.

* * *

Perhaps I ought to apologize for my own shameful lack of live coverage of these Games, but some dude has already cornered the market on saying sorry for today. But please, leave my kids alone, and also accept this peace offering in the form of random bulleted thoughts about what we’ve seen and how we should feel about it as we round the halfway point of Vancouver 2010.

• I may be alone on the planet in thinking this, but I find the snowboarders’ jean-look pants to be a brilliant and meta contribution to the gaper genre. (For some historical background, I refer you to this Bible: “If you ski in jeans, you’re a gaper. If you wear a jester hat, or big, tinted aviator glasses on the hill, you’re a gaper.”)

• Speaking of pants, Norway decided to go the John Daly route and Rob Walker imagined a terrifying future with a much brighter Brooklyn.

• Some follow-up thoughts to things we’ve discussed previously: 1) Fortra-West was all set to unload Whistler and some other properties like evil Stratton at a public auction to be held today in New York (I wanted to attend! Vail Resorts is said to be interested!) but they got an eleventh hour reprieve and now have a week to come up with $150 million. 2) Ski cross is finally coming atcha on Sunday and you’d be moronic not to watch. 3) Shani Davis won the gold and looked and sounded genuinely happy this time, yay for him! And 4) Sports Illustrated staffers must have been reading all the Lindsey Vonn butt talk with evil glee, knowing that in just a few days they’d have her all up in a bikini.

• God, I loved Plushenko’s sweet jacket and I even felt a lil’ bad for him when he was sulking on the medal stand, but what a dick: “If the Olympic champion doesn’t know how to jump quad, it’s not men’s figure skating, it’s dancing.”

• Fuck Yeah Johnny Weir Dot Tumblr Dot Com.

• We need to figure out how to advance the field of cryogenics quickly enough so that it’s like, actually working by the time Martin Brodeur ultimately expires. We can’t let him go. The man saved Canada in an overtime shootout yesterday, which is so whatever until you remember that the man is THIRTY SEVEN YEARS OLD and plays a position that involves him hunching over and doing splits all day. I’m completely in awe and I am a Rangers fan.

• Finally, check out this photo finish in cross country skiing. This is how I look when I enter the apartments of friends who live in walkups.

Katie Baker writes mostly about sports and weddings and so the Winter Olympics just kind of seemed like the next logical step.

Indians Object To Super Cool Jesus

Today in religious controversy: “The government in the Indian state of Meghalaya has confiscated textbooks showing pictures of Jesus Christ holding a cigarette and a can of beer. The book has been used for primary classes and has caused a furore in the north-eastern state, where more than 70% of the population are Christians.” I dunno, wouldn’t this make you more inclined to follow Him? Dude knows how to get His drink on.

In an absolutely shocking admission that may very well change the face of politics as we know it, a couple of writers over at National Review reveal that they actually do kind of enjoy eating brie. Will we learn of their fondness for Chablis next?

The light has gone out on inventor Ronald Howes, who developed electrostatic printers, defense weaponry, and the Easy-Bake oven.

by Dan Kois

“Why is church so boring?” asked my daughter on Sunday morning.

“You really think it’s boring?” I said.

L. considered. We were walking down the sidewalk, flanked by piles of disgusting, road-spattered snow twice her size. She and H. were dressed in Valentine’s-appropriate dresses, their heavy jackets and chunky boots clashing wildly with the pink hearts all over their tights. We were surrounded by the pre-church bustle, that mix of reverence and irreverence — hushed voices squeezing in a few more jokes before the pipe organs starts — that was once so familiar to me.

As we climbed the steps to the front door, L. turned to me and clarified. “Not all of church is boring,” she said. “There are two parts of church. The not-boring part is Sunday School. The boring part of church is when we have to sit in our seats and listen to songs.”

The past five months have convinced me that, often, L. is right. Church is boring. It’s not only boring, of course, but when it’s boring, it’s really boring.

Since I’d stopped attending church upon graduating from high school, my primary church-related pop-culture references in the past fifteen years have been in The Simpsons: the whole family in their nice clothes, Bart’s hair slicked down, Marge looking embarrassed, Homer with his head thrown back, snoring. I myself have not snored in church, I don’t think, but I have definitely dozed off. Even on cold winter days, the sanctuary is steamy, and the pews get a lot of direct sunlight. And the rhythm of (how to say this) non-black church preaching — “Blah blah BLAH, blah blah blah blah blah: blah blah” — sounds exactly the same as when I was a kid, and is about as lulling as speech can get.

Of course, there have been Sundays when church was invigorating: the music was great, the sermon was interesting, the verses from Job perfectly chosen for a week in which most of the congregation saw A Serious Man. There have been Sundays during which I was feeling particularly alert and aware and ready to think. This past Sunday was not one of those Sundays.

After delivering H. to the full-hour toddler playroom, L. and I sat in our customary pew, joined by our neighbor, Karen, and her daughters. It was Women’s Sunday, a yearly tradition at Rock Spring UCC, in which the service is given over to the women of the church, pastoral interns and laywomen alike. The effect on the service was a little jarring, not specifically because they were all women; one of the church’s three everyday ministers is a woman, though she sat Women’s Sunday out. But when you hand a church service to people unaccustomed to running a church service, things can get a little amateur hour. The ordinarily quick pace of the service slowed to a crawl as women looked at each other, silently working out who was next; one flustered lay reader missed a couple of lines in the pre-offertory call and response.

A restless L. spent the first twenty minutes of the service drawing Valentines on the bulletin and kicking the seat in front of her. At Rock Spring, school-aged kids hang out in the sanctuary until the children’s sermon. Then parents take them to Sunday School. We walked down the steps, L. growing more and more excited as we approached her room. “Hi, L.!” the teacher said. “We’re decorating cookies today!”

L. turned to me. “Cookies!” she cried, clasping her hands in delight, a four-year-old experiencing rapture.

As I waited outside the sanctuary doors, listening for a good moment to re-enter, I could almost hear the Simpsons, shedding their dress clothes in the front hallway after another dull Lovejoy sermon. “This is the best part of the week!” Homer cries. Lisa agrees: “It’s the longest possible time before more church!”

Our return to church last fall was spurred by a lot of things: a desire to meet people in our new suburban neighborhood; concerns about the moral framework our kids were growing up with; L.’s total freakout about dying. Thus far we’d barely met anyone, and it was unclear whether L. was getting anything out of the experience other than twenty minutes of frustration and some free cookies. But church had surprised me by offering me something I hadn’t even known I’d wanted in my life. Not faith — not yet. Not really grace. Boredom.

Inside the sanctuary, a laywomen delivered the sermon — on “love,” natch — and I sat peacefully and listened. I knew when we decided to return to church that it would sometimes be boring. What I didn’t expect was how much I would come to appreciate that boredom — how much I look forward to sitting in the back pew, basking in the sun, as my eyes unfocus and the choir sings Amen. It’s not the old church boredom I’m feeling, the kid-sized desperation of being stuck somewhere awful, listening to something that lasts forever, itching inside your own skin. It’s more akin to relaxing thoughtfully, settling down, opening up your mind. Meditating, I guess, although I’ve never actually ommmmed.

The best part of returning to church so far has been that it’s offered an oasis of calm in our ridiculous lives. We wake up, we hectically prepare the kids for school, we work and work and work, we pick the kids up, we put them to bed, we work some more. Even this day, Valentine’s Day, my wife skipped church to continue a project. (We hired a babysitter for that afternoon, but not so we could go out for romantic dinner — so we could work.) Sometimes we get to play with our kids for a while. Sometimes we get to watch Lost. But church is one hour a week in which we don’t have to write or research or pitch or network or parent or do much of anything. One hour a week in which all we have to do is think. One hour a week of sweet boredom.

When I was a kid, time going slowly felt like torture. As a grown-up — as my days and weeks and years hurtle by — I find that one creeping hour feels like a gift.

“How was Sunday School?” I asked L. when church was over. She was clutching a cookie that seemed to have been the subject of some kind of extreme-sports version of cookie-decorating; pink frosting and red sparkles and candy hearts jockeyed for space on its overcrowded surface. Sprinkles clung to the cookie’s edges for dear life. H. stood next to her, anxiously awaiting some sign that her sister might share that cookie with her. I geared up for a battle, as there was no way L. would ever do so willingly.

L. broke off the tiniest possible chunk of her cookie and handed it to her sister. Pink hearts clattered on the classroom floor. “It was not boring,” she said.

Previously: Prologue: “This Is A Song”

Dan Kois writes about movies and plays and books, too. Also, he has a new book out, about that Hawaiian guy with the ukulele.

Jersey Mayhem: Prosecutors Seeking Heavy-Duty Italian-Looking Man Who Enjoys Leg-Breaking, Baseball-Batting And Collecting Money

“Either we collect this money like a gentleman or we collect it like a tiger,” said 60-year-old Michael “Mikey Red” Nobile. “And sometimes I like to collect it like a tiger.” This according to federal wiretap evidence entered in his trial for extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion. Nobile, who New Jersey prosecutors describe as a “former leg-breaker,” was allegedly one of three “heavy-duty Italian-looking men” who witnesses reported as violently threatening the manager of Lenny’s pizzeria a Warren County pizzeria last summer. The wiretap, which was originally used to convict Nobile of assault ten years ago, also recorded him saying, “I will baseball bat your head!” For some reason, current employees of the pizzeria were reluctant to discuss the matter with newspaper reporters.

A stunning new survey reveals that more than 40% of Texans do not believe humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time.

Nicole Minetti, the dental hygienist who helped treat Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi after he was smacked in the face with a souvenir statuette late last year, has been selected to join a list of candidates contesting regional elections for Berlusconi’s ruling party at the end of March. Unsurprisingly, she is not unattractive.