Sunday morning roundup

Drought threatens Indian crops, too.

Let's hope Joyce Banda succeeds.

France owns up to the Vel d'Hiv operation. A new book on (and called) The Second World War doesn't entertain pretenses of delicacy. As reviewer Gerard DeGroot puts it,

Good military history should stink of blood, feces and fear. Beevor’s book stinks. It reconstructs the great battles but weaves in hundreds of tiny instances of immense suffering.

As I'd noted in my travel notes, Czech Republic has come a long way. A Czech official reflects (in the context of what may lie ahead for Burma):

I remember when I returned to my homeland after 40 years of exile and traveled throughout the Czech country. I was appalled by the dilapidated buildings and devastated towns. Even the forests had been destroyed by acid rain. Havel, then our president, asked for a report from my trip. Upon listening to my findings, he told me: “You have been away for a long time. The buildings will be restored when their owners get them back. The forests will rejuvenate again when we get the cleaning filters for the power plants installed. The towns will rebound soon. But it will take a very long time to repair the damage to the souls of our people.”

Yes, yes, this story of  government bullying of Kafkaesque proportions is infuriating and, as George Will points out, makes us all a little libertarian. But examples of abuse are not arguments against reasonable regulation. Say, the kind that might have prevented a massive oil leak from threatening Lake Michigan.

Steve Pearlstein urges us to quit pinning the financial crisis (and every other crisis going back to the fall of the Roman Empire) on the repeal of Glass-Steagall. More from him on the topic of financial regulation here.

A new book on child-rearing begs parents to ease up on the pressure. What else isn't good for kids? A depressed, controlling parents who sees the world in black and white and doesn't care about the impact of her "biblical" lifestyle on her daughter.

For at least the third time in less than a year, I find myself reading "in defense of poor, overwhelmed parents" treatises that to me reflect how out of control our child-worship culture has become. No, I don't think the question of why there were small kids in Aurora is one of the more important questions to be asked about the shootings, but I'm also not sure why this rambling ranter is so defensive about it--so intolerant of people who would ask that question, among others. I'm not talking about 12-year-olds or even six-year-olds; I'm not here to question the judgment of parents in terms of what movies are right for their kids. I'm here to question the judgment of parents who bring infants to movies--any movies, not just violent ones, not just midnight showings--because it's just not fair to other movie goers. But what irks me more is the "logic" that new parents are so put upon that they're entitled to wreak havoc on society at large in any way they choose, and those of us who don't want to accommodate them at all times are being judgmental. It reminds me of that defense-of-the-pregnant-woman:

I am that mom. Cart full, aisles crowded, trying to remember if we need breadcrumbs or if I’m on snack duty this week while half-paying attention to my whiny and grabby girls.

I try to appease them with snacks fresh off the shelves and do my best to save the wrappers for checkout. Sometimes I grab a snack for me, too.

Plus, many of us who’ve been pregnant know those intense hunger pangs can come on fast and vicious. If food doesn’t come quick, than a fainting spell will.

Yeah, that's funny. I know a lot of women who have been pregnant (and also many who have gone shopping with kids). They say no to them instead of appeasing them, or they bring snacks instead of opening food they haven't yet paid for. It's called living in a society and not on a deserted island.

You know I'm the last to suggest that parents should stay home and deprive themselves of entertainment; all I'm saying is, don't make your outings everyone else's problem by bringing your kids. And if you can't make it work, write it off as one of the tradeoffs that comes with having kids.

DC is cooler than New York but less cool than Houston.

In spite of the glowing review, I'm on the fence about Craig Brown's new circles-of-name-dropping book.