Continued Worry Over Insurgent 'Swarm' Attacks

A NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED today reminded me of the ongoing debate on the part of military forces over the growing effectiveness of "swarm" attacks — use of multiple, expendable attackers against a far larger foe to evade, degrade, and overwhelm its defenses — against peacekeeping forces designed to face similar-scale enemies. It also reminded me of previous coverage this issue has received right here.

Whereas the Iranian incident I cited a year ago eerily echoed a 2002 Navy wargame result, the current article, by author and Naval Postgraduate School instructor John Arquilla, takes as its points of departure two land assaults: the Mumbai attacks of November 2008 and last week's trio of government-ministry suicide attacks in Kabul. He fits these into a pattern that includes multiple al Qaeda actions since (and, in his thesis, including) 9/11. We've heard repeated warnings from commentators about the vulnerability of our industrial, commercial, and transportation hubs to attack from a team of guerrillas, small enough to evade the intelligence and counterterrorism hierarchies we've enhanced since 2001. Arquilla's point: We rightly ought to anticipate a swarm of such assaults.

How to counter such a nebulous foe? Arquilla credits use of smaller, widely distributed military strongpoints across Iraq with the recent drop in violence there. Our police forces would fulfill this role here, in similarly deployed "counterterrorism posts," along with agreements between state officials and the feds to ensure that if a situation requires the National Guard, arrangements for its deployment would be smoother than those that bollixed the Katrina response. He also argues that "Reserve and National Guard units should train and field many more units able to take on small teams of terrorist gunmen and bombers. Think of them as latter-day Minutemen."

I would want some clarification on this last point. At what point in the scale of a swarm attack, or the nature of the target, do we decide we need the Guard? A Mumbai-style action at the Mall of America? Pipe bombs along the parade route at Mardi Gras? Six simultaneous bank robberies in the suburbs of Denver? Perhaps the desire is to ensure a quick response in those areas of the country that lack the SWAT and counterterrorism forces and rapid-deployment capabilities America's major cities have developed, often with post-9/11 federal funding. Local communities often found it difficult to fit the mandate of these Washington dollars with their perceived terror threat (I believe Fahrenheit 9/11 brought this sort of thing to light).

If we want to defeat swarms, we have to assess and cater to local needs, and not impose a blanket defense plan across the entire United States. I think assigning SWAT-like duties to Reserve and Guard units — both straining as it is against the American national-disaster cycle and the demands of two wars — would lack the necessary nuance. The "clear rules in advance for using military forces in a counterterrorist role" that Arquilla cites ought to be used to define the needs of each area considered vulnerable across the land. Major farmlands might require local police to work more closely with the community airports more common away from big cities, to catch possible crop saboteurs via background checks of new pilots. Do the chemical plants and refineries from Edgewater to Elizabeth need to improve their grounds access? Maybe the police could set up a substation near critical sites if their station houses haven't already acquired CBW/hazmat gear and set up evacuation plans.

State and municipal police forces already have the distribution and intimate knowledge of their communities to sense something is amiss. It's their sensitivity we ought to enhance, rather than refocusing the rightly broader purview of domestic military forces. And always within the bounds and penumbra of the Fourth Amendment. Safety from clouds of nimble attackers means little if we're watching through the windows of our figurative cells.

Counterterrorism and national security planners play a cold game of math when judging the cost and effectiveness of responses to threats, versus the probability that such threats will manifest or even take the forms our defenses anticipate. Innovative tactics like agile swarms are the stuff of planners' nightmares. Arquilla is smart to highlight the expanded danger that swarm attacks could represent to the target-rich environment that a free and open society like ours presents. With some definition of role, his plan to apply the lessons of Iraq to America — via our existing police hierarchy — could be a minor investment, compared to the crippling catch-up cost that responding to an American Mumbai could incur. We would have to walk a thin line between effective defense and personal freedom, between concrete effectiveness and Schneier-style security theater, to ensure its success.

High Expectations for Chelsea's High Line

I USED TO WORK VERY CLOSE to the High Line, the venerable elevated railway that used to serve industries along the West Side of Manhattan. I had been dimly aware, as the involuntary end of my employment there approached, of efforts to transform the route into a park. There was a ceremony at the High Line in '07, before I left that job, presumably to celebrate the start of restorative work or the unveiling of plans, I don't recall exactly which. But the city was definitely moving forward in getting it ready to share with the people at large.

I was reminded of these efforts by a story in today's New York Times on the continuing work on the Line, as well as real estate projects around it, in what writer Amy Cortese calls "some of the most ambitious development in the city in years." In the middle of a fierce economic downturn, New York City is forging ahead with a public-works project to rededicate a utility route to civic good. Well done.

I used to walk around the High Line neighborhood during idle times at that job, soaking in the old architecture, marveling at the cobblestones still paving the streets in some spots of the Meatpacking District, admiring the boutiques and galleries that inhabit former commercial spaces. As time and developers claim the decades-old brick-and-iron edifices that face Jersey, the chance to glimpse them from the height of the High Line is one I greatly anticipate.

The Street Finds Its Own Uses for Things

WILLIAM GIBSON'S SUMMARY APHORISM of the cyberpunk ethic is proven to be true in the present with each passing day. News has filtered down, from the rustling pages of academe to the popular media, that athletes are experimenting with that Maginot Line of flagging virility, Viagra, to boost performance in other places than the sack. Because the drug relaxes blood vessels and thus permits enhanced blood flow, athletes reason that this will allow more oxygenated blood to reach muscles — a boon when competing far above sea level.

Some in the world of competitive sport never stop trying to find the performance magic bullet, no matter how small the effect, preferably an undetectable one, and sometimes one that's actually safe to take. Viagra originated as a solution to pulmonary hypertension, but its mode of action — via nitric oxide on blood vessels — is not restricted to the lungs. (Just ask Bob Dole or Ron Jeremy.) Over-the-counter nutritional supplements have used nitric oxide to increase blood flow to muscles for some time, presumably in subclinical doses relative to a Viagra pill.

So my question is, who first came up with the idea to apply a prescription dose of nitric oxide to an otherwise healthy person? Not all athletes fit the jock stereotype. The elite know very well what their food and nutritional supplements contain and do to their systems, and rightly so for such an investment of time, money, and effort. On the college or even high school level, however, I wonder if coaching staffs or even parents might be way these pills arrive in the players' hands. And for professional players, it's easy to say the guy needed the Viagra for its traditional use. Think how much is at stake. What's the off chance of a side effect or being found out compared with getting into a bowl game or the playoffs?

Just goes to show you that one person's finished product is another's prototype.

Royal Navy 2, Pirates Naught

FOLLOWING ON THE HEELS OF a report on NPR of the life of a Somali pirate — in which the reporter took considerable risk, and moral license, to interview one of the many seagoing thieves plaguing the critical sea lane through the Gulf of Aden — comes news that a British warship, aided by Russian vessels, finally took some hard action against these scum. From Wired Magazine's Danger Room blog:

For years, Somali pirates have terrorized the waters of East Africa, with only the occasional spasm of opposition. But now, NATO has begun to patrol the area in force. And the pirates are starting to get smacked back. On Tuesday, the British Royal Navy "repelled a pirate attack on a Danish cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, shooting dead two men," the BBC reports.

The pirates were given a chance to surrender, but after they fired small arms at the HMS Cumberland, the British sailors returned fire and dropped a pair of them.

Years ago, I recall reading a New York Times Sunday magazine article by Jack Hitt about modern-day pirates. I recall being surprised at how prevalent the problem had become. As evidenced by the first link in the quote above, Somalia's coast is now a hot zone for such crime.

I have no sympathies for the dead pirates, and I think it's about time such a clear signal was sent that this shit won't fly. One of the commenters to the article had the same thought I did: that the naval powers of the world should begin dispatching WW II–style Q-ships to begin throwing the Fear into these scum. I had an ambiguous reaction to the NPR report; though it was fascinating, I still felt like the world would've been better served had the story ended with the reporter emptying the pirate's skull with a shotgun. But that's a violation of journalistic trust, and let's face it, several of my favorite books were written by, or in collaboration with, Mafiosi. Still, if you look at the list of previous stories on the topic beneath the story behind the first link in the quote, this is clearly not a new problem, with over 100 incidents this year. Well, there are two pirates who won't be joining the next raid.

NYT: "We fear it will take years of forensic research to discover how many basic rights have been violated."

NEW YORK TIMES: Obama for President. Their endorsement praises Obama and buries both McCain and Bush/Cheney. The header of this post is one of the best nails they drive into the Bush coffin. Read it all.

Too Late for a Blog Title Change?

HAD THIS BLOG STARTED ON 9/11/07 instead of 9/11/05, and had I read this interview, by Nick Hornsby, of David Simon, creator/writer/producer of The Wire, at the time, I might have been tempted to use the line in bold Verdana as my blog's title:

NH: Every time I think, Man, I’d love to write for The Wire, I quickly realize that I wouldn’t know my True dats from my narcos. Did you know all that before you started? Do you get input from those who might be more familiar with the idiom?

DS: My standard for verisimilitude is simple and I came to it when I started to write prose narrative: fuck the average reader. I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell.

(Original pair of quotes found, via Merlin Mann's Kung Fu Grippe, in The Believer.)

The Sarah Palin Question Nobody's Asking

WHERE WAS SARAH PALIN WHEN the plane of Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs — a member of the Warren Commission — disappeared without a trace in Alaska?

And don't give me that "But she was seven!" shit. I've seen The Bad Seed.

A Truly Orwellian Blog

GEORGE ORWELL BLOGS. Being dead, he has some help. Domestic-life entries from 1938 right now, much concerned with local weather and wildlife, and — being the journal of a Brit — the garden. Come September, his political thoughts. Entries, each posted on the actual date + 70 years, are transcribed into WordPress; I hope they include more photos of the diaries themselves. I find the look of a person's diary as potentially interesting as its content, if not more so should the lettering be of striking character.

Bonus: Arch-diarist Samuel Pepys got the drop on Orwell more than 5 years ago.

India, Ink.: Howl of the Hiring Manager

IF YOU'VE EVER HIRED STAFF, and you've waded through résumés toxic with errors, India Amos's hilarious and insightful job application tips post should either inspire PTSD-laced flashbacks, or assure you that you weren't overreacting when you wanted to sweep every résumé on your desk into the shredder. Her advice will comfort those who hire and counsel those who aspire to be hired. She cites particularly painful examples from the scores of applications she's received, then runs through the typical sections of a résumé to detail how each part should best serve the applicant and avoid disenchanting the reader.

In this quasi-recession, competition for jobs is fiercer than ever. Don't make it any harder for an employer to contact you, because he or she won't waste time translating your errors into English; it's far easier to pick up the next résumé. India's advice can help yours land in the "follow-up" file instead of the circular one.

Microloading for Busting Stalled Weightlifting Progress

WHILE ENGAGING IN THE CURRENT (and, one hopes, ongoing) round of exercise, I checked my past recorded efforts, most of them failures. I noticed I tended to stall out at one maximum weight, then stop, get discouraged, and lose all of my progress.

The barrier seems to be that jump to the next higher weight unit. I use machines as well as free weights. The weakness of some of the machines is that the smallest unit is 10 lb. When you're barely strong enough to pull down 100 lb., 110 seems very distant. So I would end up leveling off, then flounder.

Enter microloading. Bodybuilders have long added smaller-than-usual weight plates to their barbells to push past the sticking points that lie between the standard 2.5- and 5-lb. plates. Some use magnetic mini-plates, others rig custom additions from huge washers or lengths of chain. For a sampling of what some bodybuilders have done, check this article the Dave Draper IronOnline message board. It's where I got my solution to the problem:

I don't need the single-pound nudge as much as the ability to make gradual progress between those big 10-lb. steps. To accomplish this, I hit the neighborhood hardware store (not yet driven out of business by Home Despot), and bought a length of moderately thick 2-ft. length of chain and a 150-lb.-test carabiner. I can dangle a 2.5-lb. plate from this, not unlike one of Flavor Flav's clocks, then attach it around the weight stack, so the next step from 100 becomes a slightly more manageable 102.5. When the time comes, I can up that to 105.

The only thing I need now is a gym bag, both to make sure this thing comes with me to the gym, and to hide it from casual view. Just sitting on my passenger seat, it makes me look like I'm heading to a rumble. An extra in West Side Story I'm not.

NYT's Medium Blog: Are All Morans Morons?

VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN, WRITER OF THE Medium blog on the New York Times site, ruminates this week on how a reporter should quote, and possibly edit, the incorrect — by turns inadvertent and deliberate — spelling, grammar, and usage one finds across interactive Internet writing.

This is no small matter, particularly among message board or blog communities in which English has evolved, or been guided, into clipped lingo for speed or irony. To an outsider, it can appear impenetrable. A non–poker player visiting the 2+2 message boards would need to visit the FAQ to decipher TPTK (top pair, top kicker), OESD (open-ended straight draw), or the all-important MHIG (my hand is good). And should we presume the user of the term moran to be a moron, a poor speller, or merely one delivering a zinger on an actual moron by quoting this spirited citizen?

Vive la (Faux) France!

I'VE BEEN A SLUG ABOUT recording my recent Las Vegas adventures here, but I do have three photos from the town of thematic interest on this Bastille Day:


Paris Las Vegas, Eiffel Tower by Schizohedron. Some rights reserved.

I blasted this one from my car while heading south on Las Vegas Boulevard. The need to keep half an eye on the stoplight explains the trimmed tower tip. You can go up the tower to a restuarant (whose logo is visible through the palms), which affords a great view of the Bellagio fountains across the street, or travel to the top for the second highest public view of the Vegas Valley in town.


Paris Las Vegas, south side by Schizohedron. Some rights reserved.

I don't know precisely which Paris structure the main façade of the hotel mimics — a university or library, I'd assume — but this shows some of the details. This is one of the more cohesively and pleasantly themed properties in town, and still holds up well after 10 years, which is an eternity in this town.

Should you stop by, the Le Village Buffet is excellent, one of the best I've had there. Your best bets are breakfast and lunch; they also offer a Champagne brunch on weekends.


Paris Las Vegas, Arc de Triomphe by Schizohedron. Some rights reserved.

This Arc de Triomphe stands in the center of a cobblestoned traffic circle. You enter the property to the left here, and the parking garage is to the right and straight on.

Note to poker fans: If you like the poker room at the Planet Hollywood casino one property south, but hate the ¼-mile trek through the mall that lies between the PH parking garage and the casino, park at Paris, walk out to the Strip, and enter through PH's main entrance; the poker room is just inside.

As I begin this day, my own thoughts are on the buttery, flaky, chewy croissants available just across the street. The demands of the weekly eating regimen, sad to report, forestall indulging in one of these Gallic belly bombs. Quel dommage.

I Wish This Were My Fault

SADLY, I CAN'T TAKE CREDIT for the recent news of casino stocks taking a tumble and Las Vegas suffering a slowdown. I barely played the table games where I could've done that sort of damage to the houses' bottom lines. Blame falls on the credit crunch and the rocket ride petroleum prices have taken, with a side order of the steep plunge in the Vegas real estate market:

A cut in the wages of sin (Economist)

Gambling stocks tumble on economic woes (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

This amid massive new construction in Vegas, and the recent or imminent unveiling of expansions at Foxwoods and the Borgata. The saw about gambling being recession proof appears false, though these surveys don't take into account the still-huge amount of online and Mob-run gambling that goes on each day.

Still, this news is good for me medium term. With Vegas enduring a post-9/11-style slowdown, the offers for cheap rooms should begin streaming in. I might be able to get back there a little sooner than I had anticipated. Maybe not to Wynn, although I did get a fairly restricted deal email from them (cheap room + restaurant credit, but said credit could only be used in one of the eateries) a week ago. Bellagio's already been sending mailers, according to a chat I had with premier poker reporter Dr. Pauly.

However long it takes, once things pick up in the economy, and the blood on the Street is swilled down by patient value investors, the itch to return to Sin City among America's gamble-mad masses will become irresistible, and the dollars will flow. In the best possible world, this brings a tide of awful poker dilettantes into town . . . where I will be waiting.

Three Essential Las Vegas Guides

FOR SOME LAS VEGAS TIPS you won't find in any printed tourbook, I offer you three guides that may boost your fun, ease your losses, and keep you out of jail. Excerpts of each guide are included:

1. Dr. Pauly, Bloggers Invading Las Vegas Tips (scroll down to Nov. 19 entry)

The fifth version of this road map for the the world's poker bloggers as they gather periodically to donk it up in Sin City. Compiled by top poker journalist and kickass world-wandering writer Dr. Pauly, aka Pauly McGuire, who is combining both talents to cover the 2008 World Series of Poker on Tao of Poker in high style. Even those tips that are more inside-baseball for hardcore online hold'em addicts are worth scanning to see how a previously far-flung group of strangers bonded a few years ago via this crazy game and the Internet to become a community. An occasionally very, very drunk community.

10. Never underestimate the importance of a $20 tip.
Do you wanna get shit done in Vegas? Tip the hell out of every person you see. I'm from New York City and we tip everyone. In a town like Vegas, most of the people working in the service industry are not paid extravagantly. They rely on tips to supplement their wages. You would be surprised how much attention you can get with a simple $20 tip. Heck that's like one big bet for some of you. . . .

Now if you think $20 gets you a long way... try tipping $40 or $100.

2. Rands in Repose, The Rands Vegas System

My friend Matt brought this to my attention, and I declare this guide a solid addition to any Vegas warrior's stash of holy texts. Rands is a software-engineering manager, insightful tech-culture essayist, coiner of the term Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder — or NADD — and author of Managing Humans, which collects many of his most useful posts for helping managers treat their charges like people and not soulless 1s and 0s.

We’re all still laughing about the time when Vegas tried to convince the world that it was a family town. You remember this? This was back during the Internet boom, money was free, and Vegas was pretty full of itself as it’d as it had every instant multi-millionaire with huge amounts of disposible cash stumbling around the casinos literally bleeding cash.

With this new wad of cash, Vegas was wondering, What’s next? Where was the growth? Who were the new Vegas customers? What about families? In Sin City? Sure, why the hell not? If they can sell cat food on the Internet, why not get families to think of Vegas as Disneyland? Rollercoasters, yeah, that’s the ticket.

What a complete crock of shit.

3. AllVegasPoker.com, Drinking for Profit—Poker for the Casual Vegas Player

Not everyone totes sheaves of $100s to Vegas for the big hold'em tourneys or to score bottle service one table away from Jay-Z's posse. Some prefer to turn the city's poker rooms into a free-floating — and free-drinking — home game, and let Sin City serve them . . . until they can barely stand. Follow AllVegasPoker.com message board poster Grange95's detailed description (and sly parody of a zillion poker strategy books) to get the most top-shelf tipple for the smallest donation to waitresses and tablemates.

Introduction: The recent poker boom has brought forth a veritable cornucopia of books, manuals, treatises, and websites devoted to improving poker playing skills. These publications have fed the swarms of poker locusts who inhabit most Vegas poker rooms, stripping every last chip from the assorted donkeys, fish, sloths, wombats, platypi, and conventioneers who find themselves attracted to the olfactory siren song of cigarette breath, four day old underwear, and pieces of sandwiches putrefying in the fat rolls of the guy in the five—and six—seat.

But what about the casual poker player, the intrepid soul whose sole purpose for playing poker is that it seems like a “cool” way to get hammered while losing less money than playing $25 blackjack next to a tattoo-covered LA trust fund baby and looking more manly than playing nickel slots next to a chain-smoking granny? Although the poker-drinker is a common denizen of the Vegas poker scene, his (and he is male more than 98.62% of the time) unique poker strategies have not been subjected to rigorous mathematical and game theory analysis. The current poker-drinker is forced to live by his wits, learning by trial and error and the occasional “secret tip” from a degenerate fraternity brother.

Violent Beauty

TWO SORTA RECENT VIDEO GAME ad campaigns juxtaposed tableaux of in-game combat with music of stunning emotion. If you'll permit a pair of YouTube links, these are worth sharing.

Gears of War, featuring the Michael Andres/Gary Jules cover of Tears for Fears's "Mad World"



Halo 3, featuring Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude in D flat major (direct link if the video's a bit jerky):



Perhaps I'm an old softie, or a sucker either for sad piano music or Tears for Fears, but both of these choke me up a little.

Second Chance for Michael Vick's Abused Pit Bulls

THE NEW YORK TIMES HAS a heartbreaking story today about the pit bulls that bullethole-deficient asshole Michael Vick bred for dogfighting. Those able to be recuperated now live at an animal sanctuary on money Vick was forced to disgorge to support their upkeep and rehabilitation. But the physical and mental effects of the abuse their handlers and dogfighting opponents inflicted won't fade easily:

A quick survey of Georgia, a caramel-colored pit bull mix with cropped ears and soulful brown eyes, offers a road map to a difficult life. Her tongue juts from the left side of her mouth because her jaw, once broken, healed at an awkward angle. Her tail zigzags.

Scars from puncture wounds on her face, legs and torso reveal that she was a fighter. Her misshapen, dangling teats show that she might have been such a successful, vicious competitor that she was forcibly bred, her new handlers suspect, again and again.

But there is one haunting sign that Georgia might have endured the most abuse of any of the 47 surviving pit bulls seized last April from the property of the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick in connection with an illegal dogfighting ring.

Georgia has no teeth. All 42 of them were pried from her mouth, most likely to make certain she could not harm male dogs during forced breeding.

I haven't even dared to check out the accompanying audio slide show.

WSJ Article on Getting Jobs Without a 100% Skill Match

TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL carried an article, "How to Land That Dream Job When You Lack Certain Skills" by Sarah E. Needleman, which reinforced a sentiment I've heard elsewhere in this job hunt. The nut:

If you're passionate about a certain industry but lack the skills commonly associated with its most visible leaders, you can try to pursue a career working on the sidelines. Being behind the scenes may offer more than just the opportunity to score freebies and gain exposure to your dream industry's superstars. The career choice may also help you enjoy what you do for a living as well as pay your bills.

In discussions with M, my friend and former supervisor, she said that my lack of full facility with design software doesn't disqualify me from careers in publishing that have tracks upward from where I left. Our bosses, for instance, had little to no modern experience with any of the software, hardware, or production methods we used to create our work. As a veteran of these particular trenches, I have an informed opinion on these areas, and I can make managerial decisions affecting them without stepping on scores of toes or wrecking a budget. I was also given sound advice along M's lines by the always awesome India Amos.

I found echoes of the career-consulting program in the article as well. "Think broadly about the types of employers to target," advises Needleman. Early in the program, job seekers are encouraged to do just that, including employers in industries outside the candidates' resume experience. I recall an example given in one of the program texts, in which a job seeker wants to break into the entertainment business, but — lacking the experience needed to do it as talent — does so by joining a business that serves the industry, thereby gaining contact with potential mentors and employers while remaining close to her passion. On this topic, Needleman also cites joining organizations in one's field to build a network, a linchpin of the counseling service's method.

I am mulling my next steps in the job hunt as well as in skill acquisition. The School of Visual Arts runs summer programs for continuing education (including one-weekend concentrated courses) in various software packages, including Illustrator and Photoshop. I took a combo course in both back in 2001, but based on the number of ads that cite both as primary skills, I feel I'd need a full-frontal immersion in just one of them to get in tune with the basics needed by most of these employers.

This article, and the discussions I've had with M, have me wondering whether this is a strictly necessary prerequisite. If I do some digging and make active contacts with hiring managers, maybe I can get into the head of one who might need me as I am . . . or as I soon will be. I have skills along the editing and writing axes as well, which makes me a potentially useful combination plate. (These are the images I use when I blog around dinnertime.)

If nothing else, I will be careful to avoid making the same mistake one person alluded to in the article made at McFarlane Toys. Apparently this dork showed up with a sheaf of comics for the boss to sign. As their HR director put it, "He didn't last very long."

Lifehacker's Been Reading My Mind!

HOT ON THE HEELS of my last post, I noticed a post on efficiency-tip trove setting up an emergency fund. This page also cites a similar story they previously linked, on About.com. I think both are worth a read, even if you have a fund set up or know the basics of how to build one.

Above and beyond the basic wisdom of maintaining such a fund if you can, what does it say that this topic is on more than one mind? Pessimism about the financial future of the country? Concern for one's ability to survive a calamity on the eve of the Katrina anniversary? Who knows.

Flood Your Heart With Bollywood Joy!

THRILL TO THE WONDERS of Bollywood vamp and WFMU favorite Helen in this clip from YouTube!



If this is slow or jerky at all, view the direct YouTube link here, because Helen is delish. I am such the sucker for a sensuous dancer in a cheongsam. And I could listen to Bollywood soundtracks for days. See WFMU's Beware of the Blog entry on Helen's film triumphs for more links to YouTube clips.