THINGS I'VE LEARNED ON VACATION

Greetings from lovely Kona, Hawaii. I'm here until the 30th, enjoying the sun, reading, swimming in the warm comfort of the Pacific.

Here are a few things I've learned since I left Bethesda:

• The Satanic Verses is a beautiful and troubling novel, but you shouldn't start reading it while you're on an airplane. Thus, it joins two other excellent-novels-not-for-airplane-reading: Lost Horizon and Fight Club.


• Kona is not Waikiki


• Kona's charms are less easily accessed than the charms of Waikiki, but they are charms nonetheless. On Christmas I saw two whales frolicking off of the beach at the Old Airport State Park. Beautiful.


• Noel Kent's Hawaii, Islands under the Influence is a good read.

At any rate, I'm having a beautiful time here with Anita and her family. Hope your holidays are going well.

INDIAN SUPREME COURT NEWS

The Times of India has a short roundup of the Indian Supreme Court's work this year, here, and the Hindustan Times has an article on activists fighting to overturn a recent decision allowing the arrest of women at night, here.

SACKLER

Went to the Sackler yesterday (Ben's suggestion) and saw the Himalayas exhibit. Definitely worth a second trip before it closes on January 11th. The exhibit is on two levels and divided into three geographical sections -- Nepal, Kashmir and central Tibet -- with an incredible wealth of artifacts in each section. The pieces are religious artifacts with complex messages that engage even the uninitiated. It's actually a bit overwhelming.

My favorite piece is the large, colorful painting from Kashmir (I believe), at the foot of the stairs: a yogi stands atop a series of animals, held up by what I believe is a god of some sort, who is standing on a series of animals, and all of it rests ultimately on two small, mysterious circles, one white, one red. Parts of the yogi's body are labeled but I couldn't read the words, obviously. None of the animals are labeled, however, nor are the two circles.