Unmanly things

- I hate to do the Seinfeld thing, but I think this is probably important: whenever a group of men and women walk through a door, there is some chaos/ambiguity w/r/t who should hold it open and how. Sometimes it's a hand-off type thing, where everyone props for a second or two as they walk through and then pass the duty on to the person behind them. Sometimes, though, one of the men volunteers to stand guard and hold the door the whole time. I guess this is just being "nice" or whatever but I've noticed a few times that some guys take an insiduous pride in accepting the burden, and they insist on remaining in position until everyone is through. Again, not to "close-read" but it's a pretty naked assertion of masculinity/dominance, not so much over the women in the group, but the other men. "No, no, please, go ahead, I got it." Like there's the old "schoolyard joke" where you say "ladies first!" but that's not really any different than what really happens.

- From the NYT, on the moments immediately before Saddam Hussein's execution:

As the hangmen prepare him for his final moment, some of those invited to attend standing below the platform taunted the former president, who was executed on Saturday before dawn.

One man shouts "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada," a reference to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who heads a powerful Shi'ite political movement and a militia blamed by Washington and Sunni Arabs for running death squads targeting Saddam's Sunni Arab minority.

Saddam, the noose around his neck, appears to smile and shoot back: "Is this what you call manhood?"