Friday evening roundup

War f*s people up, in myriad ways.

I don't understand why some Jews think that Jews are stupid.

Insightful but somewhat depressing look into the ways of Washington.

AAAS dissents from its own board on Prop 37.

Empathy and logic cannot be summoned at the same time.

The Onion's contribution to the analysis of Nate Silver bashing (more here and here). Actually, this is one of those occasional (I won't say rare) instances where Alexandra Petri is worth reading.

Ah, traveling while single. I was just looking into tacking on an excursion to a possible work trip when I was put off by the single supplement (which in one case was more than double the tour price!). This has rarely been an issue for me because I've been blessed to so often connect with friends who want to travel to the same places, but sometimes you just want to go somewhere close to where you happen to be, and they don't make it easy.

Before I knew what that article was about, I thought it might be about navigating the holidays in general while single. This is one of those things--like Valentine's Day--that supposedly strikes dread in the hearts of others, but not me. Not because I'm entirely satisfied with my relationship status, but because I care less about external milestones like holidays. In fact, last year, I was dating someone during the holidays and still felt like I was on my own (mom didn't make it any better by constantly trying to set me up with someone else). At least this year, I will spend little, if any, time with my parents over the holidays.

Back to the article: Paris is complicated. I'm not one to hand anything over to couples, much less one of my favorite cities in the world; on the other hand, Paris can be painfully romantic if you're single. But not for long. I've spent a lot of time there, single, and loved it.

My parents used to make fun of me when I talked about Paris. In the Soviet Union, for most people, Paris was but a fantasy. There was some movie--or maybe some celebrity uttered this line in an interview: "the last time I was in Paris..." and it was scandalous, like someone saying "last time I was on the moon" with the tone one more suitable for "last time I cleaned my bathroom." And yet, my parents were only moderately impressed with Paris when they saw it. It's one of those cities that you have to let get under your skin for you to fall in love with it. And I did, and I find myself saying, with no intention of being obnoxious, "last time I was in Paris..." Of course, by now, last time I was in Paris was 2000 (March, I think), and that city will always have a claim to part of my soul. Then again, so will Cardiff, perhaps for the parts of it that evoke Paris.

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AAdvantageGeek, thanks so much for the advice! I called Bose on Tuesday and my 1,500 bonus miles were posted that day, no questions asked. Wow. I really should have just dealt with Bose immediately, i.e., exclusively, and left the AAdvantage customer service people to stew in their own incompetence.