Please send tips and story ideas (along with the permalink or the URL of the printer-friendly version, if available) to The Stiletto at: thestiletto@thestiletto.info.

The Stiletto believes in giving credit where credit is due, so all tips, jokes and story suggestions posted on The Stiletto Blog will be attributed to the readers who provided them. Please include your full name (not user name or other pseudonym), plus the city and state in which you live. The Stiletto especially welcomes material on these topics:

Not The Sharpest Knife in The Drawer
Idiotic or irrational actions or utterances, by politicians, celebrities and everyday people. Examples:

Exercising His Rights
John Kerry urging fellow Senators to vote against a constitutional amendment banning flag burning: “So I ask my fellow Senators, are we really that frightened of somebody's willingness to go out and be stupid? In the United States of America, you have a right to be stupid." – OpinionJournal.com, June 29, 2006

Forget The Maines
Dixie Chick Natalie Maines: "Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country … I don't see why people care about patriotism."


On The Cutting Edge
Fresh insight on contentious issues. Also, any cool techie thing that would appeal to The Stiletto's inner geek. Example:

Gitmo Detainees Treated Darn Good
Rather than being the hellhole critics claim, The Washington Post makes the case that, “the United States' treatment of its foreign detainees would improve enormously if all the prisoners it holds [in foreign countries] were transferred to Guantanamo”: 

The military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has become the focus of global protests against U.S. human rights violations during the war on terrorism. Images of the hooded, jumpsuited prisoners who were brought there in 2002 still pervade the world's media; so do lurid accounts by former inmates alleging abusive treatment, and reports of recent suicides and hunger strikes. …

Guantanamo now is, by far, the most comfortable and legally accountable detention facility maintained by the United States for foreign prisoners. …

Guantanamo's detainees have recreation facilities and good medical care; their continued detention is reviewed once a year by military boards, and prisoners are assigned advocates to help argue their cases. Pending a decision by the Supreme Court, they are also able to appeal their detentions to U.S. federal courts, and many have U.S. civilian lawyers. …

Some of those who demand that Guantanamo be closed insist that all its detainees either be tried or quickly freed. This is wrongheaded and, for some Europeans, hypocritical. In fighting their own wars against terrorists, Britain and other countries have relied on preventive detention to hold dangerous militants who cannot immediately be charged.


Penetrating Insights
Common knowledge, typically delivered with breathless earnestness by celebs or self-help publications. Example:

"Oprah Winfrey: Wealth Is 'a Good Thing'"
– People Magazine via OpinionJournal.com, April 11, 2006


The Daily Blade
News and current events, sharpened by a snarky, clever, punning headline. Examples:

Easy Chair Rider
The Wall Street Journal reports on yet another example of atherosclerotic liberal baby boomers trying to hang on to their glory days in the counterculture, and the “greedy” corporations that make big bucks catering to their pathetic delusions (or are they flashbacks?). Bet the original Young Americans for Freedom are aging far more gracefully.

Psycho Kerry, Qu’est que c’est?
Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better, run run, run, run, run away


What a Heel!
Cads, oafs, politicians and other miscreants behaving badly – and taking exception to the inevitable consequences. Example:

Gotti Have A Public Defender?
Complaining he’s broke because the feds froze his assets, John "Junior" Gotti wants taxpayers to foot the bill for a court-appointed attorney. Prosecutors counter Gotti clears up to $21,000 a month in rental income from commercial properties – enough to employ a bevy of gardeners, drivers, housekeepers to run his family’s Oyster Bay Cove estate, complete with swimming pool and horse barn.


Goody Two Shoes
Holier-than-thou, politically correct types admonishing the rest of us while exempting themselves from their own standards of conduct. Also, examples of media hypocricy. Example:

Study: Dems “Unprincipled” And Racist
A new study by Stanford University professor Shanto Iyengar conducted with The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com suggests that Republicans are parsimonious but principled, while Democrats are bighearted but bigoted:

[T]the study found that people were less likely to give extended aid to black Hurricane Katrina victims than to white ones. The race penalty, on average, totaled about $1,000 per black victim. … Republicans consistently gave less aid, and gave over a shorter period of time, to victims regardless of race. Democrats and independents were far more generous; on average, they gave Katrina victims on average more than $1,500 a month, compared with $1,200 for Republicans, and for 13 months instead of nine. But for Democrats, race mattered -- and in a disturbing way. Overall, Democrats were willing to give whites about $1,500 more than they chose to give to a black or other minority. … "Republicans are likely to be more stringent, both in terms of money and time, Iyengar said. "However, their position is 'principled' in the sense that it stems from a strong belief in individualism (as opposed to handouts). Thus their responses to the assistance questions are relatively invariant across the different media conditions. Independents and Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to be affected by racial cues."


If The Shoe Fits
Bone-headed, overly-specific or painfully obvious advice on matters of health, wealth and life in general. Examples:

Avoid Swimming in Sewer Overflow
– Houston Chronicle via OpinionJournal.com, June 20, 2006

Prevent Mosquito Bites
– Health Day News, June 2, 2006

Avoid winter damage to your home
– Marshall Loeb’s Daily Money Tips, MarketWatch, December 5, 2005


In My Shoes
"Slice of life" stories. Also, how a particular event, issue, policy, vote, court decision, etc. affects a specific person or community. Example:

Shark Attack
Addressing the nationwide phenomenon of disappearing diving boards at public pools, The Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore writes:

I'm now an official victim of the trial lawyers. So are my kids and the 800 members of our community pool that opened this summer without a high diving board. The three-meter board had been a fixture of our pool at Chesterbrook Swim Club in Fairfax County, Va., for as long as anyone can remember. But the county has declared that it can no longer afford to pay the liability insurance for it--and so we've been grounded. … No high board means no more "atomic" cannonballs, can openers, jack knives and watermelons, the kind of attention-grabbing dives that boys love to perform, sending a quarter of the pool's water spraying onto unsuspecting sunbathers nearby. And no more graceful teenage girls either, performing double flips with a twist, entering the water with hardly a ripple. So why can't we just have a sign that reads: "Jump off this board at your own risk"? Some of our club members, many of whom are lawyers, say the elimination of the high board is for the safety of "the children."


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