[Germantown, Maryland; August 25. Image via Getty]

A woman holds up a picture of US President Barack Obama depicted as Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during a healthcare forum with US Congresswoman Donna Edwards (R), D-MD, in Germantown, MD, August 25, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

• A court in Germany has fined a man for beheading Hitler. Minutes after the Madame Tussauds museum opened, the 42-year-old man ran in and grabbed the head off a wax Adolf statue, claiming that it is inappropriate to include an image of the Nazi leader so close to the Holocaust memorial. • Spain has announced plans to make the emergency contraceptive pill available over the counter. There is also a movement in Spain to loosen the strict abortion laws, which only allow abortions in cases of rape, or when the mothers health is seriously at risk. • A small team of students at the College of Textiles in New Jersey are currently working on an update for the standard hospital gown. • Researchers have found that mothers who experience a traumatic experience prior to becoming pregnant may still pass certain behaviors (stemming from the trauma) onto her offspring.  •  A recent study indicates that women across America are forgoing their annual recommended mammograms. • Good news: a new study shows that there are now more women in corporate boardrooms than ever before. •  Horrible news: An Argentinian man has been charged with incest and the rape of his daughter. Armando Lucero allegedly had seven children with his daughter, who he began abusing at age eight. Naturally, Lucero's case has been compared to that of Josef Fritzl. • In the African country of Mauritania, rape is defined as "domestic violence," regardless of whether the rapist was a stranger or an acquaintance. Furthermore, rape is not generally prosecuted as a crime, and under current laws, the only illegal part of rape is the sex-without-marriage thing. • Scientists have found that smoking may enhance the activity of a gene that aids in breaking down body fat. • A 15-year-old Australian girl named Jessica Watson hopes to become the youngest sailor to make it all the way around the world. Her solo trip will begin next week, right after her 16th birthday.  •  A new survey found that 3 out of 4 domestic violence shelters have reported an increase in women seeking aid in the past few months. Sue Else, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, believes that this may be due, at least in part, to the recession. • This London sexual health clinic is a far cry from the local Planned Parenthood I visit. Pap smears in style. • A California woman has been accused of making over $8.5 million in an online prostitution ring. The website claimed to offer dates with porn stars and fashion models. • French kissing (or "tongue kissing," as we called it in grade school) increases the risk of contracting oral HPV, study says. • 

ANA MARIE: Good morning!

MEGAN: Hey there! How are you?

ANA MARIE: A little tie-tie and already tired of the fucking shoe story.

MEGAN: I am actually really impressed with Bush's reflexes. Like, for all those politicians that took cream pies to the faces, Bush was like, nuh-uh. In slow-mo, it's very Matrix-y.

ANA MARIE: I think this should put to rest the rumors that he's drinking again. You know what's really going to suck about this, right?

MEGAN: Other than everything?

ANA MARIE: Journalists no longer be allowed to wear shoes. We're living in a post 12/14 world. And in that world, shoes just aren't worth the risk.

MEGAN: Dude, no one is taking my shoes. I stop with the pedicures in, like, November. I can't afford otherwise.

ANA MARIE: I doubt if you're alone. Lynn Sweet does not seem like a regular pedicure girl.

MEGAN: Plus, not to be mean to the White House press corps, but I'm betting some of those dudes have some gnarly, smelly feet. I really think a room full of unshod reporters' stank feet is probably more of a risk to the President than a shoe.

ANA MARIE: (And I just want to note that I had to cycle through a few names before I got to a WH correspondent that might not get regular pedicures. But I suspect Jake Tapper does!) Yeah, see that is where we disagree! I think many WH correspondents take VERY good care of their tootsies. It's not like they're out there pounding the pavement. Very little reporting involved in covering the White House.

MEGAN: I don't know, it's not like Maureen Dowd is there and can go all Elvira, Mistress of the Dark on him. [Ed: For those with better taste in movies than me, Elvira dispatches the villain at the end with a stiletto to the forehead, killing him. ]

ANA MARIE: I had forgotten that Elvira had her own movie. Thanks. You will not be shocked to know that right now on Morning Joe Pat Buchanan is showing a rather... uhm... exhaustive knowledge of Nazi history. Seriously, though: Pat Buchanan showing up to out-Nazi-trivia Bryan Singer about his own Nazi movie.

MEGAN: Yeah, completely NOT surprised. At least I can blame my Hitler trivia knowledge on the fact that I was a German history minor.

ANA MARIE: FWIW, I sense that Pat, like the heroes of Valkyrie, thinks that Hitler totally ruined Nazism.

MEGAN: Is is strange that I'm surprised that Bryan Singer is kind of hot?

ANA MARIE: I'm a little surprised at how young he seems, but not that he's hot. Usual Suspects was, fuck, over a decade ago?

MEGAN: Directors are so rarely attractive, though.

ANA MARIE: I have not made enough of a study of that. But speaking of studying: Trying to make sense of this Kristol op-ed. Have you read?

MEGAN: I find it hard to read while his grinning pumpkin head stares at me. It's already hard enough to decipher.

ANA MARIE: He and Jim Webb should hire themselves out for Halloween.

MEGAN: Is there enough orange paint in the world for that?

ANA MARIE: I think he wants a bail out? Or he's knocking the GOP for something?

MEGAN: Actually, I am a little horrified that I'm agreeing with some of the things he's saying about Republicans. He's still a reflexive idiot about liberals.

ANA MARIE: He has been kind of an idiot about Republicans!

MEGAN:

But despite the fact that the government is partly responsible for the Big Three’s problems, the right hasn’t really been stirred to enthusiastically promote a deregulatory agenda to help the auto companies. What excites it is mobilizing to oppose bailouts for unionized workers.

Last week, Senate Republicans picked a fight with the U.A.W. on union pay scales — despite the fact that it’s the legacy benefits for retirees, not pay for current workers, that’s really hurting Detroit, and despite the additional fact that, in any case, labor amounts to only about 10 percent of the cost of a car. But the Republicans were fighting Big Labor! They were standing firm against bailouts!

ANA MARIE: I'm not convinced he's always writing this column himself. Not that he's farming it out, but just engaging in automatic writing or something. Letting the spirits speak through him. And this spirit happens to be different than the "I HEART SARAH" one.

MEGAN: It's definitely written through his "all liberals are hypocritical" filter, though.

ANA MARIE: I think he's saying that they should do MORE to deregulate unions besides take on labor. Like, the problems of regulation go beyond unions. By saying that GOP shouldn't have gone after labor, he's NOT saying unions are good. And even though he likes the idea of the "car czar," isn't the car czar idea inherently anti-anti-regulation? My head hurts now. Let's move on

MEGAN: Well, I think he main point actually comes through at the end.

The bill would have allowed President Bush to name a car czar, who could have begun to force concessions from all sides. It also would have averted for now a collapse of the auto industry, and shifted difficult decisions to the Obama administration.

It's all about trying to make his Republican compatriots understand their role is to make Obama look bad.

ANA MARIE: AH! Ain't unity grand?

MEGAN: But let's talk cute: an Obama daughter-Chris Rock daughter playdate. That's a unity of cuteness.

ANA MARIE: But not BIDEN PUPPY CUTE!

MEGAN: Okay, the puppy is very cute, but: he used a breeder. Pound puppies, people, the nation is crying out for change.

ANA MARIE: And, seriously, who DOESN'T want a play date with Sasha and Malia. I mean, I want a playdate with them. I know, I would feel better about a rescue pup. BUT LOOK AT HIS EYES. The puppy's, not Biden's. Though I think that the national had a similar reaction when Obama picked Biden: "We would have preferred HRC BUT LOOK AT HIS EYES."

MEGAN: It is an extremely cute puppy, and the Biden granddaughters will, naturally, get to name him.

Originally, Brown said she was to bring two puppies to Biden, but Biden called and said he wanted to see all the dogs.

"He was very gracious," Brown said. "He hugged and kissed all of the shepherds."

There are also totally women in the world today wishing they were puppies.

ANA MARIE: I LOVE that detail.

MEGAN: Well, how do you not let puppies lick your face?

ANA MARIE: "He hugged and kissed all of the shepherds." Of course he did. That's the only part of the Vice President's job that Biden's not planning on eliminating.

MEGAN: I'm sure that's in the Constitution.

ANA MARIE: I am so glad I'm not in Chicago, btw. You can hear the chattering of teeth in the voices of reporters covering Blago/PEBO (PEBO = "President-Elect Barack Obama" I learned that very recently! Like, journo slang.)

MEGAN: I sort of love how more and more people are like, dude was craaaazzeee when he's obviously just sort of always been an asshole.

ANA MARIE: But you can't "plead asshole" in court.

MEGAN: Actually, I think that should be a legitimate defense. "But, Your Honor, I'm an asshole." I want to hear defendants say that, give 'em 30 days off their sentence or something.

ANA MARIE: I think that was Scooter Libby's first try.

MEGAN: Scooter left out the "stupid" part. Everyone already knows lawyers are assholes. That's the real meaning of "Esquire." Speaking of, I found Shep Smith's interview in Esquire kind of endearing but difficult to read in the absence of questions. Even writing that made me feel like I'd bought into something very bougie about writing.

ANA MARIE: Well it was like hearing one side of a phone conversation. A fascinating conversation! But still, a little disjointed. Maybe they're saving money by not printing the reporter's questions! Something that maybe places like the Tribune Co. and Newsweek should look into!

MEGAN: Less ink, less layoffs? Maybe they should look into this Internet thingie, where there's no ink and no layo... Oh, wait, never mind.

ANA MARIE: I was thinking more, like, how they don't have to pay extras in movies if they don't have lines. If you don't print the reporters' questions, you don't have to pay them.

MEGAN: Maybe we could just let all the people in the news write in the first person about what they're doing and just call it a day. The press is just like this unnecessary middleman in this day and age.

ANA MARIE: EXCEPT THEY'RE NOT, right? I was a conference last week and this guy from Google was all, "we hate it that the MSM is going under, because without them we're not going have quality information to index for people to search." So I was like, "You'll need to start hiring journalists then."

MEGAN: Oh, God, stop. I'm laughing so hard I'm crying. Or crying so hard I'm laughing, I can't really tell.

Tupac: The rumor is that the ill-fated rapper lost one of his dudes during a 1994 shooting when he took two bullets to the groin. After that, he was called "One-Pac" by many giggly fans, and even with only one ball, Madonna still wanted to have his baby.


Lance Armstrong: In the words of The Cancer Blog, "Now it's having only one testicle that separates the winners from the losers." Lance Armstrong's unparalleled athletic prowess (not to mention his way with certain blonde celebrities) shows that monorchic men can be champions.


Tom Green: Like Lance Armstrong, Tom Green survived about of testicular cancer. And also like Armstrong, Tom Green was not afraid to be servicey about it. After his diagnosis in 2000, Green hosted an MTV show called The Tom Green Cancer Special, in which "a camera crew followed Green into the operating room in March and looked on as surgeons cut into Green's insides, removed a testicle and some lymph nodes, and put his intestines on the table during surgery." How…graphic of him!


Arnold Schwarzenegger: The California Gov allegedly only has one berry next to his twig, according to the internet. Is the alleged missing testicle from his alleged steroid use during Ahnold's body building days? Maybe one day Maria Shriver will tell us the true testicle story on Oprah.


Nazi Leader Hitler Really Did Have Only One Ball [Telegraph]

Welcome to 'Fine Lines', the Friday feature in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wrinkled look at the children's and YA books we loved in our youth. This week, writer / reviewer / blogger Lizzie Skurnick rereads 'Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself', Judy Blume's 1977 story of Sally Freedman, who, following WWII, spends a year in Miami and triumphs over Hitler and Man O' Wars.

"Such big eyes!" Ma Fanny said, laughing. "You still have half a sandwich left."

Okay, everyone, quick poll: raise your hand if, after V-Day, you want your brother to get sick with nephritis so your dentist father can send you, your mom and your bubeh from NJ down to Miami for the winter to help him get better and you can go to school in a trailer and bike around being afraid that your neighbor, Mr. Zavosky, is Hitler, while you get your braid tugged by a boy you only later figure out you like and your grandmother calls you "mumeshana" and you dream of your dead cousins, Lila and Tante Rose, killed in the Holocaust, and you drink cocoa with whiskey because you're trying to make the creme de cacao your Mom drank in Cuba, and then you get stung by a Man O' War and complimented by said brother on being braver than he thought and catch Virus X and eat two bowls of chicken with rice soup, then try on some toe shoes.

For those who didn't do last week's assigned reading (or, you know, read the preceding paragraph), Blume's wondrous near-autobiography is the story of one Sally J. Freedman, whose father (dubbed neither my mistaken last week's "Dodo-bird" nor "Dooey-bird" but in fact "Doey-bird") moves the rest of the family from N.J. to Miami after the end of the war for one year when Douglas, the older son, needs to recover from a bout of nephritis. Thus ensconced in the Sun Belt with her mother and Ma Fanny, Sally embarks on a series of adventures that only another girl could understand are true adventures, including getting nits, having a friend fall on a bike, getting stung by a man o' war, washing diamonds with a hotsie-totsie in the Ladies Room, having her neighbor get knocked up by a goy, and discovering her neighbor is Hitler.

You might note from one of those that Sally is also given to vast flights of fancy, which, given the times, wend to spy missions in Europe and captures of Hitler — who has, in fact, killed her cousin Lila and Tante Rose, her grandmother's sister, both gassed in Auschwitz. Sally's triumphant narrative:

Sally F. Meets Adolf H

It is during the war and Sally is caught by Hitler in a round-up of Jewish people in Union County, New Jersey...He orders the Gestapo to bring her to his private office. Tell me, you little swine, Hitler hisses at her. Tell me what you know and I'll cut off your hair.

...Sally shakes her head. I'll never tell you anything...never!

So Hitler goes to his desk and gets his knife and he slowly slashes each of her fingers. She watches as her blood drips onto his rug, covering the huge swastika in the middle.

Look what you've done, you Jew bastard, Hitler cries hysterically. You've ruined my rug!

Ha ha, Sally says. Ha ha ha on you, Adolf....And then she passes out.

When she comes to, Hitler is asleep and snoring with his head down on the desk. Sally crawls out of his office, then dashes down the hall to the secret passageway of the underground. She gives them valuable information leading to the capture of Adolf Hitler and the end of the war.

It seems impossible to write about Starring Sally J. using a straightforward plot synopsis, because, like some glorious dish of kreplach, its mighty stuffing of detail exists in a symbiotic relationship with the soup of the plot. (As we have previously covered, frontiers, English manor homes, and the 40s somehow lend themselves unswervingly to that old detail porn, a fact for which PBS must be very, very grateful.) Instead, you hear about curtains being run up on sewing machines and you can't help but be transported right into Sally's apartment, with its Murphy bed and courtyard fountain with goldfish, and in the kitchen you sit, being spoken to by Ma Fanny entirely in Yiddish, reverse-syntax English and ellipses. There's your grade-school teacher Miss Swetnick over there, with her heart-shaped glasses and chipped tooth, and there's your Sunday at Herschel's, with just a little cherry juice on top. That's the ring on your four-party phone (one long ring, followed by two short), and there you are in the grade school bathroom pulling down your Esther Williams-esque coronet to make Margaret O'Brien braids and stuffing your white socks into the garbage to look more like the girls in Florida and not the ones in NJ. (And hoping God will forgive you this one time when the starving children in Europe could probably — right? — use those white socks.)

But I wonder if another reason we swoon for Sally J. is that, as readers, we were very much at the same level of detail comprehension — not only in our real-world lives, but in our reading of the book itself. After all, not only did I also have no idea what an "addition" or "Creme de Cacao" was (though I too tried to approximate it with Hershey's and whiskey) I also was ignorant of so many of the ready references of Sally J.'s world that she understood perfectly well: Jolly Rodger, dog tags, "Swells", Esther Williams, Margaret O'Brien, open-sided pinafores, Admiral Halsey. (To be perfectly honest, I still have no idea who Admiral Halsey is.) Any goyim must have been even more ferblondzet!

Pre-Wikipedia, I of course only realized who Esther Williams was years later, and some of the scenes — like that Ma Fanny borrowed Sally's English book to practice English and THAT'S why it was in the pantry — I just realized now (I am slow). But even as an eight-year-old, I understood that Sally realizing Peter Hornstein liked her, or that she was more adventurous than her mother, was a great leap forward for my beloved character. And though, at age 8, I may not have known yet who Eva Braun was, or where Union Woods could be found, I knew when Sally made peace with the fact that, probably, Hitler was not running amok in them, I too could set aside this childish dream.

Still longing for a finished basement, though!

• • • • • •

Now, for this week's Plotfinder winner: Congratulations, one Gillian B., who slid in with the correct answer, O.T. Nelson's The Girl Who Owned a City, pretty much *as* the post was posted. (Do you know, I've actually never read that one? Whatever—have you read The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids? That's what I thought!) Congratulations, Gillian—write me at jezziefinelines@gmail.com to claim your column, any column.

This week's Plotfinder comes from reader Allison, who sent me a great many Plotfinders, all of which we will get to eventually:

Theres also one about a little girl, and a little girl witch lives in the abandoned house next door. She flies her broom into the bushes I think, and climbs into the window. She eventually turns herself into a turtle, and goes to school with the non-witch girl. The turtle-witch girl sneaks off, into another classroom with younger kids, and ends up in the cafeteria eating out of a big jar of strawberry jam.

Is it just me or do the Plotfinders increasingly resemble head trips? In any case: Send your answers, as always, to jezziefinelines@gmail.com, or post below in the comments. First correct answer gets their favorite pick in an upcoming Fine Lines.

And, finally. I have heard around the way that some Jezestrelles would like to know the books ahead of time. Oy! All right. I'm also finally cracking to reader pressure—WITH the provisional caveat that I may change my mind periodically or, you know, forget. I mean, I'm the person that has a shopping bag with things to return to Target that I forget EVERY TIME I GO TO TARGET, even when I'm going there to return them.

With that, next week's book will be The Girl With the Silver Eyes, followed by Plotfinder winner Sarah R.'s request: Norma Klein's Love is One of the Choices, followed by some TBR blockbusters in June. Happy Half.com! (And by the way, if you NEVER read Klein, I recommend going whole hog on whatever is there, especially Sunshine.)

As always, write me at jezziefinelines@gmail.com with your demands, observations, remonstrations, and Man O' War remembrances.

Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself [Amazon]
Lizzie Skurnick [The Old Hag]

Earlier: Summer Of My German Soldier: Springtime For Hitler, Part I
•From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler: City Of Angels
•A Gift Of Magic: Totally Psyched
•Are You There Crazy Psychic Muse? It's Me, Lois Duncan
•The Secret Garden: Still No Idea What A Missel Thrush Is
•To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie: No Telephone To Child Services
•The Westing Game: Partners In Crime
• The Moon By Night: Travels With Vicky
•My Sweet Audrina: The Book Of Sister And Forgetting
•The Long Secret: CSI: Puberty
•The Cat Ate My Gymsuit: A Pocket Full Of Orange Pits
•The Witch Of Blackbird Pond: Colonies, Slit Sleeves And Stocks, Oh My!
•Are You In The House Alone? One Out Of Four, Maybe More
•Jacob Have I Loved: Oh, Who Am I Kidding, I Reread This Book Once A Week
• Then Again, Maybe I Won't: Close Your Eyes, And Think Of Jersey City
•My Darling, My Hamburger: I Will Gladly Pay You Tomorrow For A D&C Today
•All-Of-A-Kind Family: Where I Would Put Something Yiddish If I Thought You Goyishe Farshtinkiners Would Farshteyn
•Island Of The Blue Dolphins: I'm A Cormorant And I Don't Care
•Little House In The Big Woods: I Play With A Pig Bladder Like It's A Balloon
•The Grounding Of Group Six: Have Fun At School, Kids, And Don't Forget To Die

• It was a Britney Christmas: She drove around aimlessly, occasionally pausing to assault members of the paparazzi, before settling down to maybe have sex with a member of the paparazzi. This transpired at the Peninsula Hotel. (Her house was "too messy," she claimed. We believe her!) She made a 1 a.m. trip to Rite Aid to stock up on Lucky Charms and laundry detergent. She did not appear to be wearing a bra. [People]
  
• Does all this mean she's suicidal?? [The Sun]
  
• Jay-Z is leaving his post as President of Def Jam, where he signed Rihanna and if that's not considered a success the industry must just be in really bad shape...oh wait. He may open a hotel. [TMZ]
  
• A Scottish newspaper claims to have Will Smith on the record saying that Hitler wasn't such a bad guy. Smith's rep says this is "awful and disgusting." The Anti-Defamation League now wants Barack Obama to get in the middle of it. Doesn't he have real Holocaust deniers to worry about? [TMZ]
  
• Paris Hilton's 16-year-old brother Barron and girlfriend Skye Peters (daughter of producer/Barbra Streisand ex Jon Peters) were at the Bel Air Hotel on Friday, "holed up" in a room there something happened blah blah blah police were called. Details on the police tape to follow. As well as the inevitable sex tape? (Ooooh, will they name it "We Hope She's Barren"?) [Page Six]

• Madonna is planning on re-releasing all her singles as a means of celebrating her 50th birthday/pissing off her record label.
• Amy Winehouse's husband snuck a cell phone into jail? Don't want to sound naive, but what kind of prison guards don't notice a cell phone? The kind of prison guards who are now busy sharing a kilo of coke maybe? [The Sun] [The Sun]
• A woman who took a picture of R. Kelly with her cell phone inside a courtroom is already serving time in the slammer for the offense. Kelly, meanwhile, has yet to be even sentenced in his child porn case. Ah, the American justice system. [TMZ]
• A raccoon has eaten Steven Speilberg's koi fish. Spielberg is unhappy. The raccoon is no longer hungry. [Page Six]
• Hilary Swank: Still bitter about being fired from Beverly Hills 90210. [Page Six]
• French president Nicolas Sarkozy took really hot model/singer girlfriend Carla Bruni to Egypt for Christmas. [Daily Mail]